and had again subjugated them by force of arms. Now we again repudiated them. In 1854 we executed, and forced them to accept, a convention by which we handed over the Government of the country to them,—to be carried on after their own fashion. But yet it was not to be carried on exactly as they pleased. There was to be no Slavery. They were to be an independent people, living under a Republic; but they were not to be allowed to force labour from the Natives. To see that this stipulation was carried out it would have been necessary for us to maintain magistrates all over the country;—or spies rather than magistrates, as such magistrates could have had no jurisdiction. The Republic, however, assented to a treaty containing this clause in regard to slavery.
In 1854 we got rid of our Orange River Sovereignty, Sir George Clerk having been sent over from England to make the transfer;—and we congratulated ourselves that we had now two independent Republics between us and the swarming hordes of the north. I cannot say how soon there came upon Downing Street a desire to resume the territory, but during the following troubles with the Basutos such a feeling must, one would say, have arisen. When the Diamond Fields were discovered it is manifest that the independence of the Orange Free State was very much in our way. When we were compelled by the run of circumstances to have dealings with native tribes which in 1854 seemed to us to be too remote from our borders to need thought, we must have regretted a certain clause in the convention by which,—we did not indeed bind ourselves to have no dealings with natives
