In August the 2nd (Queen’s) Regiment arrived from England, and soon after part of the 12th Regt. from the Mauritius. But there were a mass of hostile Kafirs and Hottentots in the Colony estimated at more than 6000, one body being in the Fish River Bush 30 miles to the north-east of Grahamstown, the other under Macomo in the Waterkloof 50 miles to the north-west, and in a patrol made by Colonel Mackinnon in the Fish River Bush on the 8th September, Captain Oldham and 25 men were killed and 41 wounded, and the bush was re-occupied by the Kafirs immediately. Meanwhile Somerset had failed in expelling Macomo, and Kreili and Fakoo seemed on the brink of openly throwing in their lot with Sandilli.
Under these circumstances, although now reinforced by the 60th Rifles and the 12th Lancers, Sir Harry asks on the 15th October for 400 English recruits for the Cape Corps and two additional regiments of infantry. Meanwhile there were fresh operations of the most arduous kind in the Waterkloof, and Somerset at the end of October succeeded in dislodging Macomo from his fastness. In consequence of that success, Sir Harry was able to write on the 1st November that he was now able to undertake tasks of a more extensive character, and proposed, after sweeping the Amatolas and driving the enemy from the Fish River Bush, if he concentrated there, to march across the Kei with three columns to invade Kreili, whose country was the great refuge of the beaten Gaikas, after which it might be necessary to send a force over the Orange River against Moshesh.
On November 12th, having received a despatch from Lord Grey suggesting that, failing the support of the Boers in the Orange River Sovereignty, the territory should be relinquished, Sir Harry forwarded it to his Assistant-Commissioners, Major Hogg and Mr. Owen, with a strong expression of his own views of such a proposal.
“If Her Majesty’s sovereignty over this territory were now rescinded, the step would be regarded by every man of colour in South Africa as an unprecedented and unlooked-for victory to his race, and be the signal of revolt or continued resistance to British authority from Cape Town to the territory of Panda, and thence to the Great Lake. No measure during my administration of this Government has caused me so much consideration as that relating to the affairs of the Sovereignty. Property there, even during the late disturbances, has increased in value, and although the funds are not now flourishing, I am confident that locally they will speedily improve to a great extent. I am equally confident that if any change were made in the present state of things in the theoretical hope of gaining over a discontented party by yielding to their demands, such a precedence would evince weakness on our part, fraught with every evil, and perpetuate the belief that persevering resistance to Her Majesty’s authority would ultimately ensure success. It would, at the same time, be not only disastrous to the parties now dissatisfied, but would sacrifice to the vengeance of the disaffected those who have remained loyal and faithful.”
In this Sir Harry saw more clearly than most of his contemporaries. When, contrary to the strong opinion of the Colony,[212] the Sovereignty was abandoned in 1854, and a Republic hostile to England was allowed to take its place, only one man, the present Lord Norton, opposed the change in the House of Commons, and he on very narrow grounds, and Sir Harry Smith’s successor in the Governorship of the Cape wrote in blind satisfaction, “The foolish Sovereignty farce is at length over, and we have done with it.”[213]
In November, in the course of Somerset’s continued operations to clear the Waterkloof, Lieut.-Col. Fordyce of the 74th and four other officers fell by an ambuscade, an incident the more unfortunate as the English public, unable to realize the enormous difficulties of the situation, was already much excited by the slow progress made in the war. Those difficulties were enumerated by Sir Harry Smith on 18th Dec. in reply to a querulous dispatch of Lord Grey. He reminded him that he had had to carry on a desultory war over an extent of country twice the size of Great Britain and Ireland, overrun by a most enterprising horde of savages, and to maintain twelve forts. Had one retrograde step been made, the whole population of British Kaffraria would have been in a blaze. What soldiers could do, his had done.
“So long as the insurgents held together and acted in large bodies, they were defeated on forty-five different occasions between the 24th Dec. and 21st Oct.... I have maintained throughout my positions and forts—no convoy has been cut off, and no rencontre, however sanguinary, has been unattended with success.” Now that the reinforcements have arrived, they “will rescue the Colony from its misery ... and relieve the Governor of the Cape from difficulties, obstacles, opposition, and rebellion, such as it has been the fortune of few men to encounter.”
The worst was already past. In the middle of January Sir Harry reports that the operations beyond the Kei have met with signal success, that 30,000 head of cattle have been captured, 7000 Fingoes rescued from thraldom, and that a meeting of all the Gaika chiefs and their councillors has deputed emissaries to sue for peace, and that he has insisted on an unconditional surrender. At the same time he has seven columns of troops ready to move, if his terms are not agreed to.
Accordingly, when he received on 5th February a rather sarcastic dispatch from Lord Grey written on the 15th December, he was in a good position to reply to it. Lord Grey wrote—