The Autobiography of Lieutenant-General Sir Harry Smith, Baronet of Aliwal on the Sutlej, G.C.B.

by Sir Harry George Wakelyn Smith

(Supplementary.)

THE QUESTION OF THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A REPRESENTATIVE ASSEMBLY IN THE CAPE COLONY—THE CONVICT QUESTION—KAFIR WAR—RECALL OF SIR HARRY SMITH—HIS DEPARTURE FROM THE CAPE.

As early as 1841 the inhabitants of Cape Town had petitioned that their present system of government by a Governor and a Legislative Council consisting of officials and persons nominated by the Governor should give place to a constitution resembling that of the mother-country, to consist, that is to say, of a Governor and an Executive Council, both appointed by the Crown, and a Legislative Assembly composed of representatives freely elected by the people. Lord Stanley, in reply, expressed a general concurrence with the prayer of the petitioners, but desired further information. To this request no answer had been received, when on the appointment of Sir Henry Pottinger to the government of the Cape, Lord Grey instructed him (2nd Nov. 1846) that Her Majesty’s Government entertained the strongest prepossessions in favour of a representative system, and desired the Governor’s assistance and advice. “Some difficulties,” he added, “may be wisely encountered, and some apparent risks well incurred, in reliance on the resources which every civilized society, and especially every society of British birth and origin, will always discover within themselves for obviating the dangers incident to measures resting on any broad and solid principle of truth and justice.”

Sir Henry Pottinger, during his year of office, was too much occupied with the Kafir War to carry out the instructions given him in regard to the establishment of representative government, but the instructions he had received were repeated on the appointment of Sir Harry Smith. He lost no time in acting on them, and on the 29th July, 1848, the very day on which he started to put down the rising beyond the Orange, he transmitted to Lord Grey the opinions of a number of colonial authorities on the questions at issue, and stated that they all, and he with them, agreed on the main point that a representative form of government was desirable. Lord Grey then put the matter in the hands of a Committee of the Board of Trade and Plantations, who drew up the main lines of a constitution, which received Her Majesty’s approval. On 31st January, 1850, Lord Grey transmitted this Report to Sir Harry. It laid down that all subordinate arrangements should be made by Ordinance in the Colony, and Sir Harry was instructed to collect information and make all other arrangements for this purpose.

Meanwhile the Colony had been thrown into a state of hysterical agitation by an unfortunate arrangement made by Lord Grey to send thither some convicts from Bermuda in H.M.S. Neptune. These convicts were Irish peasants who had been driven into crime during the time of the famine, and Lord Grey seems to have thought that on this account less objection would be taken to receiving them. But the name “convict” was enough. The colonists of the Cape believed that this was only a beginning and that their country was to be made a convict settlement and flooded with criminals. An Anti-convict Association was formed, and the Governor was petitioned to dismiss the Neptune as soon as she arrived to some other station.

Sir Harry Smith, who from the beginning shared the colonists’ objection to Lord Grey’s proposal, wrote to that minister on 24th May, 1849, begging him to revoke his decision, in accordance with the petitions which he had been forwarding to him since 1st January. On the 29th May he reported a combination of the people headed by the Anti-convict Association “to hold in abhorrence any person who may aid the exiles in landing, and may have any communication with them whatever,” and to stop the supply of stores to Government. Government officials all over the country were resigning, but he was still making preparations to land the exiles and provide for their support on shore.[197] On July 24th he reported that all but one of the unofficial members of the Legislative Council had resigned, and that on the 17th he had promised by proclamation that the convicts should not be landed but detained on shipboard till Her Majesty’s pleasure were known, while declaring he had no legal power to send them to any other destination.[198]

No reply had been received from Lord Grey to the many appeals which had been made to him, when on 19th September the Neptune arrived. A fresh storm of public passion arose, and for the first time since his accession to office the Governor assembled the Executive Council. They approved of all his measures, and agreed that it would not be legal for him to dismiss the vessel. He offered a pledge, however, that he would resign his office rather than assist in carrying out any measure for landing the convicts. This declaration allayed the feelings of more moderate men, but the extremists extended their operations, and included the navy and the whole body of executive and judicial agents of the Government under an interdict so long as the Neptune should remain in Simon’s Bay.

Sir Harry, while curbing the military from any act of retaliation against the insults heaped on them,[199] was not to be daunted from the line he had taken up, and with his usual energy devised arrangements for supplying Government servants with meat and bread. He was thus able to maintain his position until 13th February, 1850, when, in answer to a dispatch of 30th September, he received one from Lord Grey dated 5th December, which authorized him to send the unfortunate convicts to Van Diemen’s Land.

To return to the question of the new constitution. On the receipt of Lord Grey’s dispatch of 31st January, 1850, the Governor found himself at a deadlock owing to the resignation of the five unofficial members of the Legislative Council in the preceding July. The convict agitation had spread such a spirit of dissatisfaction in the Colony that the Governor thought that a Legislative Council filled up by men who were merely his nominees, would not command public confidence. He therefore arranged that the Municipalities and District Road Boards should furnish him with the names of gentlemen whom they would desire to be appointed, and from these he would fill up the vacancies. He did not, however, commit himself to nominating the five highest on the list. As a matter of fact, he chose the four highest, although he believed their election had been largely procured by electoral devices emanating from Cape Town, and with them the gentleman who was eleventh, chosen as having the special confidence of the Eastern Province. No sooner was the Council thus constituted and assembled than the four gentlemen above mentioned resigned their seats (20th September), as a protest against the Governor’s departure from the electoral results and against the fact that the Legislative Council was called on to vote the estimates and transact ordinary business instead of merely preparing the way for a Representative Assembly. These gentlemen were treated in the Colony as popular heroes, and two of them, Sir A. Stockenstrom and Mr. Fairbairn, were deputed to proceed to England to carry on an agitation against the Governor. Their position was, however, an untenable one, and received no support from Her Majesty’s Government.[200]