Then the Englishmen, not to be behindhand in the fray, came to the rescue. Though there were but seventeen of them, they went out accompanied by 1500 Hottentots to meet the enemy. They followed the retreating savages beyond the Tugela, when suddenly they found themselves face to face with a fierce multitude of 70,000 Zulus. A conflict of the most terrible kind ensued: a conflict the more terrible because at the same time so heroic and so hopeless. From this appalling fight only four Englishmen escaped. These had succeeded in cutting their way through the enemy; the rest had been surrounded, and died fighting valiantly, and were almost buried among the dead bodies of their antagonists.
But this was not to be the finale of the Boer resistance to the wild Zulu. The above tragic engagement between the Englishmen and Zulus took place in April 1838. By December of the same year they had gathered themselves under the banner of their fine leader Andries Pretorius, a farmer from the district of Graff Reinet, and started forth again to meet the treacherous Dingaan, and pay him the debt they owed him.
A word or two of this Pretorius, after whom the now notable town of Pretoria was named. He was a born leader of men: he was a Cromwell in his way. At that date he was forty years of age, in the prime of strength and manhood. He was tall, and vigorous in mind as well as in body, calm and deliberating in counsel, but prompt and fiery in action. His descent is traced from one Johannes Pretorius, son of a clergyman at Goeree in South Holland, one of the very early settlers—a pious and worthy man, whose piety and worth had been inherited by several generations. Like the rest of his countrymen, Pretorius would brook no control. Though he was indubitably brave and immensely capable, he had the conservative instincts of his race. He shrunk from all innovations, he disliked everything connected with civilisation that might in the smallest degree interfere with the personal liberty of the individual. Freedom was as the very breath of his nostrils, and here was the great link between this really exceptional man and the body of his pastoral followers.
Pretorius, bent on the punishment of the treachery of Dingaan, set out, as has been said, with his expedition in the winter of 1838. This expedition has been named by the Boers the Win Commando. He had but three small pieces of cannon and a force composed of about four hundred white men and some native auxiliaries, yet the admirable tactics of Pretorius, the stout hearts and fine shooting of his followers, combined to bring about a victory over the Zulus. These were totally routed, and lost one third of their number.
The bravery and splendid persistence of the Boers filled all hearts with admiration, particularly when, after several well-directed attacks, they eventually succeeded in utterly breaking the Zulu power. Dingaan was dethroned and driven into exile, and his kraal and property burnt. A Christian burial service was read over the place where lay the bones of the assassinated Retief and his companions. The date, the 16th December 1838, on which the Zulu power met its first check from white men, is one ever remembered in Boer history. It goes by the name of Dingaan's Day, and is annually celebrated with great rejoicings throughout the Transvaal.
The Boers had now succeeded in inspiring wholesome awe in the heart of Panda, the new chieftain who occupied the place once held by his brother, the exiled Dingaan. He was not a person of bellicose disposition, and thinking discretion the better part of valour, was ready enough to swear to keep peace with his late enemies. In these circumstances the Boers with prayer and thanksgiving were able to pursue the promptings of their long-checked ambition. Soon several hundreds of waggons drawn by long teams of oxen came lumbering into Natal, for the purpose of establishing there the Republic, which had so often been planned out in imagination and never yet found any but an abortive existence. This ideal State was eventually formed and called the Republic of Natalia, and it enjoyed for several years an independent existence.
As Natal became the first cause of armed conflict between the British and the Boers, its then position in regard to the authorities at the Cape may as well be reviewed. Though the new Republic maintained its perfectly independent existence, its inhabitants were still mentioned by the Governor of Cape Colony as British subjects. It must be remembered that prior to the occupation of Natal by the Boers, and the formation of their cherished Republic, the Governor of Cape Colony had issued a proclamation announcing his intention of occupying Natal later on, and stating that the emigrants—who were then making active preparations for the attack of Dingaan—- were British subjects. In Great Britain, however, the authorities had not yet decided to follow the advice so often given by their representatives at the Cape. They were still declaring it inexpedient to extend their territory, and likewise their responsibilities, in South Africa. But the incursion of the Boers in the neighbourhood of Port Natal put a new complexion on affairs. The British Government began to open its eyes to the value of a seaport, with two good harbours on the South African coast, as a colonial possession. It could not fail to recognise also that the members of the new State were already bitter foes to the British and their ways; and that it would be dangerous to allow them to establish themselves as an independent power on the coast, and entirely throw off their duty of allegiance. Accordingly Sir George Napier, the then Governor of the Cape, sent troops to occupy Natal. He remained undecided as to the mode of dealing with the emigrant Boers, however, for, while declaring them British subjects, he yet was not prepared to afford them protection from attacks of the natives. It is scarcely surprising that this half-and-half paternity of the Government failed to satisfy the men whose kith and kin had fallen in their numbers at Weenen and the Hill of Blood, and the consequent disaffection of the Boers grew deeper as signs of British authority increased.
But at first, in the rest of their territory outside Natal the Boer Government remained unmolested. Their district was bounded by the sea and the Drakenberg mountains, the Tugela and Umzimubu Rivers, and there for a time things went well. Pretorius was Commandant General in Natal, Potgieter Chief Commandant in the allied Western Districts. The legislative power was in the hands of a Volksraad of twenty-four members, whose ways were more vacillating and erratic than advantageous. "Every man for himself and God for all" seemed to be the convenient motto of this assembly, except perhaps on urgent occasions, when Pretorius and Potgieter were called upon as joint dictators to settle some knotty problem relating to external affairs.
At the close of 1840 this Volksraad commenced negotiations with the Cape Government with a view to getting their independence formally recognised. The Governor at the Cape was again in the old quandary. While he personally desired to put an end to troubles from within and without by establishing a strong government over the whole country, he was crippled by the Ministry at home, which was consistent in maintaining its policy of inconsistency, and tried to maintain its hold on the Cape, while steadily refusing to increase Great Britain's responsibility in South Africa.
The demands of the Volksraad (presented in January 1841) were scarcely acceptable at headquarters. The nature of them is interesting, and shows the then attitude of people who described themselves as "willing and desirous to enter into a perpetual alliance with the Government of Her Majesty."