Page:The truth about the Transvaal.djvu/11

 served the British Government with zeal and fidelity, his promotion to the rank of Knight-Commander of the same Order in 1876 was a natural and well-deserved reward for past services, and to insinuate that this was given as a "prospective" honour, i.e., to induce Sir Theophilus to carry out a particular policy, is both disingenuous and unjust. Sir Theophilus Shepstone was sent to the Transvaal not because Lord Carnarvon desired "confederation" (although such a desire had long been felt by many of the best friends of South Africa), but because the reports from the Transvaal had become so alarming, and the evil-doings of the Boers towards the natives had rendered the state of the relations between white and black so critical, that it was as if a house was on fire next door to us, in the flames of which we might have been at any moment enveloped. Sir Theophilus Shepstone was more respected by the native tribes and knew more of their habits and feelings than probably any other man in South Africa. He became aware of the increasing anxiety of Cetewayo, the great Zulu King, to "wash his spears in the blood of the Dutch Boers:" he knew that if Cetewayo should move, the signal would be given for that most terrible of all wars—a war of races—and he judged the condition of the Transvaal Government to be desperate. Not with any view to the aggrandisement of Great Britain, not from ambitious motives, but rather from motives of philanthropy and a desire to avert great and too surely impending calamity, not only from the Transvaal but from the neighbouring British Colonies, Sir Theophilus determined upon annexation, and for the same wise and just reasons the British Government approved of his determination. The affair was not done in a corner, nor was it a precipitate step. Sir Theophilus arrived in the Transvaal in January; the annexation was proclaimed upon the 12th April. It is quite true that a formal protest was made against it by President Burghers on behalf of the Transvaal Republic, but it is difficult to believe that the protest was intended to be more than formal. If the Republican Executive had possessed the smallest power or stability, they would hardly have permitted themselves to be deposed by Sir Theophilus Shepstone and twenty-five policemen, which was the amount of his force. But, being utterly paralysed and broken down, they not only submitted with something more than readiness, but large numbers of their officials continued to hold their offices under the British Government and took the Oath of Allegiance to the Queen. Among this number must be included Jorisson, who has since figured as a leader among the rebel Boers.

It is now alleged that Sir T. Shepstone deceived the Home Government, or was deceived himself, as to the amount of opposition to annexation which existed on the part of the Boers in 1877.

But it must be recollected that those who make these allegations are precisely those who are interested in justifying the Boer rebellion against British rule by showing that they had never given it their willing acquiescence. The facts are that in the towns of the