Clause II.—Of R. Southey’s (Lieut. Gov. of Griqualand West) Despatch dated Apr. 11th, 1874, to Sir Henry Barkly, K. C. B., G. C. M. G., Gov. of Cape Colony.
“A policy under which people who desire to leave the country with their wives and children and stock, because they regard the exceptional laws to which they are made subject as oppressive and intolerable, and who while endeavoring to carry their desire into effect peaceably may be pursued by armed forces, may have all their property confiscated, their women and children captured and placed in forced servitude with their white fellow-subjects, and be themselves thereafter tried for rebellion, under savage instead of civilized laws, is to my mind a most objectionable policy, and one which should be superseded as quickly as possible.”
Petition of Jonathan Molapo and other Basuto Chiefs. Presented 21st March, 1882, by J. W. Matthews, M. L. A., Senior Member for Kimberley.
To the Honourable Speaker and Members of the Honourable House of Assembly of the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope, now in Parliament Assembled.
The humble Petition of the undersigned chiefs, sons and grandsons of the late Paramount Chief Moshesh, their councillors, headmen and followers, humbly sheweth,—
1st. That the Peace Preservation Act was proclaimed law in Basutoland by her Majesty’s High Commissioner and Governor of the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope, from 21st May, 1880.
2d. That thereupon your petitioners, her Majesty’s loyal native subjects of the Basuto nation, did obey the said law, and surrendered their guns, her most gracious Majesty the Queen having been pleased previously to command their obedience, and to assure them most graciously of her deep interest in the welfare of her Majesty’s Basuto subjects, for proof of which your petitioners beg to refer to Earl Kimberley’s letter of 13th May, 1880, to his Excellency the Governor, Sir Bartle Frere, which was duly communicated to your petitioners by the Governor’s agent and chief magistrate in Basutoland, Colonel C. D. Griffith, C.M.G.
3d. That, owing to influences and wicked dispositions, which are now matters of history, the greater portion of her Majesty’s subjects in Basutoland, misled by the chiefs Lerothodi, Masupha, Joel Molapo, and other minor chiefs, rebelled against her Majesty’s commands, took up arms, slaughtered numbers of her Majesty’s loyal and obedient subjects for having obeyed her Majesty’s commands, and carried on open war against her Majesty’s colonial forces.
4th. That your petitioners, at the risk of their lives, and with the loss and sacrifice of all they had been possessed of before the rebellion, in cattle, sheep, horses, grain, wagons, ploughs, houses, lands and various other properties, remained faithful to her most gracious Majesty throughout the rebellion, and at her Majesty’s call did even enroll themselves for active service, fighting her Majesty’s battles against their rebellious countrymen at Kalabani, Lerothodi’s Village, Mafeting, Makwai’s Berg, Kolo, Tweefontein, Boleka, Maseru, Thlotse Heights, Mohalie’s Hoek and Quithing, in all of which the loyal Basuto subjects of her Majesty acquitted themselves to the satisfaction of the Commandant General of Colonial forces, as is most abundantly testified to in numerous dispatches, and in the official lists of killed and wounded.
5th. That in the month of April, 1881, and after open war had been carried on for nine months, negotiations were entered into between her Majesty’s Governor and High Commissioner and the Basuto chiefs then in rebellion, when your petitioners, knowing the character, feelings, and real objects of the rebel chiefs, as in duty bound, made humble petition to his Excellency the Governor, setting forth their apprehensions in regard to the consequences to themselves and their country that would assuredly arise from any arrangement which would not include a perfect submission of the rebels and the maintenance of a force sufficient to enforce such submission, to which they never received a reply, nor even acknowledgment.