_Anxiety of Lord Carnarvon--Despatch of Sir T. Shepstone as Special Commissioner to the Transvaal--Sir T. Shepstone, his great experience and ability--His progress to Pretoria and reception there--Feelings excited by the arrival of the mission--The annexation _not_ a foregone conclusion--Charge brought against Sir T. Shepstone of having called up the Zulu army to sweep the Transvaal--Its complete falsehood--Cetywayo’s message to Sir T. Shepstone--Evidence on the matter summed up--General desire of the natives for English rule--Habitual disregard of their interests--Assembly of the Volksraad--Rejection of Lord Carnarvon’s Confederation Bill and of President Burgers’ new constitution-- President Burgers’ speeches to the Raad--His posthumous statement --Communication to the Raad of Sir T. Shepstone’s intention to annex the country--Despatch of Commission to inquire into the alleged peace with Secocoeni--Its fraudulent character discovered--Progress of affairs in the Transvaal--Paul Kruger and his party--Restlessness of natives--Arrangements for the annexation--The annexation proclamation._
The state of affairs described in the previous chapter was one that filled the Secretary of State for the Colonies with alarm. During his tenure of office, Lord Carnarvon evidently had the permanent welfare of South Africa much at heart, and he saw with apprehension that the troubles that were brewing in the Transvaal were of a nature likely to involve the Cape and Natal in a native war. Though there is a broad line of demarcation between Dutch and English, it is not so broad but that a victorious nation like the Zulus might cross it, and beginning by fighting the Boer, might end by fighting the white man irrespective of race. When the reader reflects how terrible would be the consequences of a combination of native tribes against the Whites, and how easily such a combination might at that time have been brought about in the first flush of native successes, he will understand the anxiety with which all thinking men watched the course of events in the Transvaal in 1876.
At last they took such a serious turn that the Home Government saw that some action must be taken if the catastrophe was to be averted, and determined to despatch Sir Theophilus Shepstone as Special Commissioner to the Transvaal, with powers, should it be necessary, to annex the country to Her Majesty’s dominions, “in order to secure the peace and safety of Our said colonies and of Our subjects elsewhere.”