“The occupation of the numerous posts in the country marked Adelaide in the map was very proper and necessary when the frontier was the Buffalo River, but it would be much better to carry it to the Key and there fix it permanently, and to form a place d’armes or fortified Barrack for Troops somewhere about King William’s Town, between that and Fort Wellington, or possibly a little to the westward near the sources of the river.
“In such place d’armes there might be the means of giving cover to more than the small body which might be required for the permanent garrison.”
[[209]] Lord Grey.
[[210]] Wilmot and Chase, p. 458.
[[211]] Cp. pp. [791] bot., 792. The Cape Town Mail (some indication of colonial feeling) protested both on the 25th January and on 5th April against the military execution of rebels.
[[212]] The Cape Town Mail of 9th Dec. 1851 wrote prophetically, “This abandonment of a really flourishing and promising British colony would be an Imperial calamity; but the full extent of the mischief would not be understood until it became necessary, as in a few years it certainly would be found, to reconquer the territory so dishonourably and foolishly deserted;” and Chase in 1869 speaks of the “abandonment of that splendid country, the Orange River Sovereignty, through a gross ignorance and a disgraceful misstatement of its capabilities, and permitting in its place the formation of the Free State Republic—one of the most imprudent acts ever committed, involving the Colony in entanglements, troubles, and cost, the end and consequence of which cannot be predicted.”
[[213]] Correspondence of Gen. Sir G. Cathcart, p. 358.
[[214]] Lord John Russell stated that the dispatch had never been seen by the Queen, and Lord Ellenborough, in a kind letter dated “Feb. 7,” says, “What I am told is that Lord Grey recalled you, not without asking the Duke’s opinion, but against it, after he had asked it.”
[[215]] Sir George Napier, himself an ex-Governor of the Cape, wrote in April, 1852:—“Had the Duke of Wellington ever seen the ‘Cape bush,’ he would not have said what he did about making roads through it; the thing is quite out of the question.... You may rely upon it that Sir Harry Smith would never have delayed one day in making roads had it been feasible.... As for Harry Smith, I am glad to see Lord Grey is abused by everybody for the harsh unjust manner of his recall. In my opinion the great mistake Smith made was in ever giving in to Lord Grey’s folly of withdrawing a single soldier; and when the war did break out, he should have at once acknowledged his error, and boldly demanded reinforcements to the extent of 5000 troops at once. I still hope he may be able to finish the war before his successor arrives, for till lately he had not force to do more than he did.”—Life of Sir W. Napier, ii. pp. 310-312.
[[216]] By the Sand River Convention signed on 17th January, 1852, by the Assistant-Commissioners Major Hogg and Mr. Owen, and subsequently ratified by General Cathcart, the Transvaal emigrant farmers had their independence recognized, and being thus reconciled to us were detached from the Boers within the Orange River Sovereignty, who now had no one to look to but the British Government. The Convention was no doubt politic on the assumption that the Sovereignty was to be resolutely kept. When the Sovereignty was abandoned, it took a different character. But for this Sir Harry Smith was not responsible.