Having made allusion to Sir Bartle Frere's departure, it may be as well to explain that before the battle of Ulundi it was arranged that Sir Garnet Wolseley should be sent out from home to supersede Lord Chelmsford in the command of the army, Sir H. Bulwer as Governor of Natal, and Sir Bartle Frere as High Commissioner of the Transvaal, Natal, and all the eastern portion of South Africa. Sir Garnet reached Cape Town on the 28th of June, and proceeded without delay to Natal. But, as we know, before he could reach the seat of war the battle of Ulundi was won.
The fighting was now at an end; the Zulus expressed themselves beaten, and Cetchwayo, after an exciting chase, which space does not permit us to describe, was taken prisoner on the 28th of August. He was afterwards removed to Cape Town, and rooms were given him in the castle. Hostilities having happily terminated in Zululand, Sir Garnet Wolseley then started for Pretoria. He there finally set up the government of a Crown Colony with a nominative Executive Council and Legislative Assembly.
One of his first acts on reaching Pretoria was to issue a notable proclamation. It ran thus:——
"Whereas it appears, that notwithstanding repeated assurances of contrary effect given by her Majesty's representatives in this territory, uncertainty or misapprehension exists among some of her Majesty's subjects as to the intention of her Majesty's Government regarding the maintenance of British rule and sovereignty over the territory of the Transvaal: and whereas it is expedient that all grounds for such uncertainty or misapprehension should be removed once and for all beyond doubt or question: now therefore I do hereby proclaim and make known, in the name and on behalf of her Majesty the Queen, that it is the will and determination of her Majesty's Government that this Transvaal territory shall be, and shall continue to be for ever, an integral portion of her Majesty's dominions in South Africa."
On the same subject Sir Bartle Frere, writing to England, said that he was very certain "that to give up the Transvaal is as little to be thought of as surrendering Ireland or India." In his opinion the Boer malcontents were few and inconsequential, most of the leaders and instigators being foreigners, who were personally interested in making themselves prominent, owing to the prevailing notion that the country would be given up. As to the effect of the abandonment of the Transvaal on the prospects of confederation he said: "To every colony concerned such a step would appear as a confession of weakness, of infirmity of purpose, and of disregard for solemn pledges and obligations, which would destroy all respect, all wish to belong to a Government which could so behave."
In writing to Sir M. Hicks Beach, in December 1879, Sir Bartle gave his personal impression of the feeling in Pretoria at the time of the annexation:—
"When our power of enforcing the law and upholding the authority of Government were at the lowest, in April last, ... experienced men at Pretoria gave me, through Colonel Lanyon, the following estimate of the strength of parties in the malcontent camp. The educated and intelligent men of influence, who advocated the most extreme measures, or were prepared to acquiesce in them, were reckoned at not more than eight. Three, or perhaps four, were men of property in the Transvaal; the rest foreign adventurers, with no property and little weight beyond that due to their skill as political agitators. Their unflinching and uncompromising followers in the Boer camp were not reckoned at more than eighty. The disaffected waverers who, according to circumstances, would follow the majority either to acts of overt resistance to Government and lawless violence, or to grumble and disperse, 'accepting the inevitable,' were reckoned at about eight hundred at the outside. The rest of the camp, variously estimated as containing from sixteen hundred to four thousand in all, but probably never exceeding two thousand five hundred present at one time, were men brought to the camp by intimidation, compulsion, or curiosity, who would not willingly resist the authority of Government, and would, if assured of protection, prefer to side with it."
Viewed in the light of later events, these opinions are extremely interesting and cannot be disregarded.
