This force arrived at and bivouacked on the Quantine, a branch of the Thomas River, on the evening of the 5th, and on the following morning resumed their march in three separate columns. Large herds of cattle were seen about ten o’clock in the morning near the junction of the Thomas and the Kei Rivers, and signal fires were lighted up by the enemy in various directions. After a successful contest of several hours’ duration, in which 100 of the enemy were supposed to have been killed, this force captured, with little loss, large numbers of cattle, horses, and goats, with which they returned to the standing camp on the Thomas River. The Commander-in-Chief, Lieutenant-General Sir Harry Smith, Bart., in a general order, spoke in the highest terms of these services, as being of such a character that a speedy termination of the war might be looked for, which must lead to the establishment of permanent peace to the country.
The standing camp was moved on the 10th of April to the Windvogel, a branch of the Kei River. Lieutenant-General the Hon. George Cathcart, appointed Governor and Commander-in-Chief of the Cape of Good Hope in succession to Sir Harry Smith, who was recalled, having assumed the command and arrived at King William’s Town, Major-General Somerset proceeded to that town to receive instructions regarding future operations.
Lieutenant-General Sir Harry George Wakelyn Smith, G.C.B., Bart., on resigning the command, bade farewell to the army which he had so efficiently commanded in a general order, in which he said:—
“I have served my Queen and country many years; and, attached as I have ever been to gallant soldiers, none were ever more endeared to me than those serving in the arduous campaign of 1851 and 1852 in South Africa. The unceasing labours of night marches, the burning sun, the torrents of rain, have been encountered with a cheerfulness as conspicuous as the intrepidity with which you have met the enemy in so many enterprising fights and skirmishes in his own mountain fastnesses and strongholds, and from which you have always driven him victoriously.”[455]
During the next few months the 74th was kept incessantly moving about in detachments from one post to another, the bare recital of which movements would only fatigue the reader. The regiment was constantly employed either on patrol, in waylaying parties, or on escort duties, the work involved in such movements being, as we have already said, far more trying and fatiguing to the soldier than a regular series of field operations against a large and thoroughly disciplined army. The high value of these irritating duties could only be fully appreciated by the superior officers who were watching the progress of the operations from day to day, and by the terrified colonists, whose lives and property the brave soldiers were doing their best, under great hardship, to protect. That the 74th, as well as the other regiments, really were the protectors of the colonists in South Africa, and performed their duties as such with honour and credit to themselves, all who were in a position to form an opinion concur in admitting. We have only heard of one instance in which an attempt was made to sully the honour and honesty of the 74th: that was by the Rev. Henry Renton, a Scotch missionary, who at a public meeting in Glasgow made some remarks reflecting on the conduct of the 74th Highlanders. We cannot believe that a Scotchman would maliciously attempt to sully the honour of a Highland regiment; and, of course, a Christian minister never so far should forget himself as to give utterance to a statement which he does not believe has a foundation in truth, especially when that statement, as in the present case, involves the reputation of so many of his fellow-countrymen, and, it is to be presumed, fellow-Christians. That the Rev. Henry Renton, whose honesty of intention, then, we cannot doubt, was under a misapprehension when he rashly—perhaps in a gush of “holy rapture,” as Burns puts it—made this statement at the public meeting in Glasgow, is clear from the following letter written on the subject by Major-General Somerset:—
“Grahamstown, August 18, 1852.
“Sir,—Having observed in several of the public journals that, at a recent public meeting, Mr Renton, a Scotch minister, took occasion to attack the character of the 74th Highlanders for their conduct when encamped at the Gwali Station on the Chumie River, in the month of February last, stating that the men of that corps had plundered and destroyed the garden of the widow Chalmers while the savage enemies had always spared her property; I desire to state, in justice to the 74th Highlanders under your command, that the statement is a false and gratuitous attack on your gallant regiment, whose unvaried discipline and excellent conduct have ever met my fullest approbation.
“Shortly after the troops arrived in camp at Gwali, a guard was detached to afford Mrs Chalmers protection, and if any produce was taken out of her garden, it must have been in total ignorance that any person was residing on the property—the Kaffirs who had been residing on the grounds having all fled into the bush.
“I consider the attack of Mr Renton, whose character is so well known on the frontier, to be an attempt to enhance the value of his statements in favour of those barbarians whose atrocities he has attempted to palliate, and whose cause he so earnestly patronises.
“You will be good enough to make this expression of my sentiments known to the 74th Highlanders under your command.