On April 3, 1877, Shepstone had written to Frere:
Mr. Burgers, who had been all along, as far as his conversation and professions to me went, in full accord with me, had suddenly taken alarm; he made impossible proposals, all of which involved infinite delay, and, of course, dangerous agitation. As far as I am concerned, it is impossible for me to retreat now, come what may. If I were to leave the country, civil war would at once take place, as the natives would consider it the sunshine in which they could make hay in the Transvaal; the goldfields are in a state of rebellion against the Transvaal Government, and they are kept from overt acts only by my warnings and entreaties.
And eight days later he wrote to Mr. Robert Herbert enclosing his letter under 'flying seal' to Frere:
There will be a protest against my act of annexation issued by the Government, but they will at the same time call upon the people to submit quietly, pending the issue; you need not be disquieted by such action, because it is taken merely to save appearances, and the members of the Government from the violence of a faction that seems for years to have held Pretoria in terror when any act of the Government displeased it.
You will better understand this when I tell you privately that the President has from the first fully acquiesced in the necessity for the change, and that most of the members of the Government have expressed themselves anxious for it; but none of them have had the courage openly to express their opinions, so I have had to act apparently against them; and this I have felt bound to do, knowing the state and danger of the country, and that three-fourths of the people will be thankful for the change when once it is made.
Yesterday morning Mr. Burgers came to me to arrange how the matter should be done. I read to him the draft of my Proclamation, and he proposed the alteration of two words only, to which I agreed. He brought to me a number of conditions which he wished me to insert, which I have accepted, and have embodied in my Proclamation. He told me that he could not help issuing a protest, to keep the noisy portion of the people quiet—and you will see grounds for this precaution when I tell you that there are only half a dozen native constables to represent the power of the State in Pretoria, and a considerable number of the Boers in the neighbourhood are of the lowest and most ignorant class. Mr. Burgers read me, too, the draft of his protest, and asked me if I saw any objection to it, or thought it too strong. I said that it appeared to me to pledge the people to resist by-and-by; to which he replied that it was to tide over the difficulty of the moment, seeing that my support, the troops, were a fortnight's march distant, and that by the time the answer to the protest came, all desire of opposition would have died out. I therefore did not persuade him from his protest.
You will see, when the proclamation reaches you, that I have taken high ground. Nothing but annexation will or can save the State, and nothing else can save South Africa from the direst consequences. All the thinking and intelligent people know this, and will be thankful to be delivered from the thraldom of petty factions, by which they are perpetually kept in a state of excitement and unrest, because the Government, and everything connected with it, is a thorough sham.
This arrangement with President Burgers was a most improper compromise on both sides. Moreover, Shepstone received the protests of the Executive Council and of the Volksraad before he issued his proclamation. He had plenty of evidence to show that even if his action was approved by the majority, the Boers were sufficiently divided to demand some delay. He knew that the members of the Government and of the Raad would not face the responsibility of relinquishing the State's independence, although he received private assurances and entreaties encouraging him to act. He had representations and deputations from the Boers themselves, sufficient in weight and number to warrant his belief that a large proportion of the people desired annexation. He should not have allowed the 'hedging' that was practised at his expense. The Boer leaders were 'between the devil and the deep sea.' There can be no doubt whatever that they dearly loved and prized their independence, and would have fought even then for it had they been in a position to preserve and profit by it; but they were not. They dared neither ask for relief at the price of annexation, nor reject the proffered relief at the price of continuing the hopeless struggle. So they compromised. They took the relief, they accepted pay of the new Government, and entered a protest, so as to put themselves right with the records and stand well with untamed ones of the party.
The Act of Annexation is so generally condemned by the friends and sympathizers of the Boers, and is so persistently quoted by them as the cause of the Boer War, that it is only right to show clearly what the opinion was at that time; and if it be deemed that overmuch space is given to this matter, the answer is, that it is quoted now as the crime which gave rise to the present hatred and mistrust of England, and it is all-important that the truth should be clear.
This is what Mr. J.F. Celliers, the patriotic editor of the Boer newspaper, De Volksstem, wrote in reviewing the work of the special session of the Volksraad, convened to deal with the questions of Lord Carnarvon's Federation Bill, and the rescuing of the country from ruin and chaos:—'During the session we have repeatedly had occasion to comment on the doings of the Raad. These comments have not been favourable, and we regret to say that we have found in the closing scenes of our Legislature no reason to alter our opinions.' Then follows a scathing account of the 'work done,' in which occur such references as:—'With the exception of a couple of members, no one had the sense or manliness to go into the question of confederation'; and 'The most surprising feature of the whole affair was this—that most of the speakers seemed not to have the faintest conception of the desperate condition in which the country stood....' And again, under date of March 28: 'About three months ago we said we would prefer confederation under the British flag if the state of anarchy then threatening were to continue. We know that a good and stable Government is better than anarchy any day.'