'This was an outrage of unprecedented but significant atrocity, and one which the chiefs of the perpetrators were bound to use every effort in their power to punish with severity. Those chiefs werethe petty chief, Tola, his immediate superior, Botman-and the paramount chief, Sandilla. To each a formal message was sent, demanding that they should take measures to secure the murderers of the colonist, and restore the prisoner rescued.

'This demand was not complied with by any of those chiefs; but denied or disputed, on the most frivolous pretexts. They say that the treaties did not require Caffres to be sent to Graham's Town for such thefts as that which the Caffre in question had committed, and that the Colonial magistrate did wrong in sending him. But the chiefs well know the distinction between Caffre thieves apprehended while in the colony, and those captured beyond the boundary; and know as well, that with the former the treaties have not, and never had, any concern whatever.

'Again, the chiefs say, that one of the attacking party was shot by a constable: the killing of the innocent colonist is balanced, and must not be carried further; though the chiefs well know that their countryman was killed while in the act of committing a great crime, in rescuing a prisoner out of the hands of justice, whilst the colonist was put to death without any just cause. By their conduct in this instance, connected as it obviously is with the change of circumstances already mentioned, Sandilla, Botman, and Tola, have proved themselves to be confederate with each other,—with the lawless men who broke into the Colony on the occasion referred to-with (as is upon good grounds believed) other chiefs, whose hostility has not yet made itself so openly manifest,—and with the war-party prevalent throughout Caffreland.'

Upon these grounds the governor states his conclusion as follows:

To punish these chiefs, and their confederates, and to crush, as far as possible, the Caffre war-party in general, is the first necessity now imposed on the government. When this painful task shall have been performed, it will become my further duty to consider by what means additional protection may be given to the colonists and to the peaceable and well disposed among the Caffre tribes themselves.

'The mutual responsibility of the chiefs for their followers, and of the followers for the chiefs, as well as the necessity of dealing with the Caffres in some respects as one nation, cannot be abandoned without depriving that people of the character of an organized community capable of entering into stipulations by treaty; and at the same time exposing the colony to evils, against which it is the duty of the government to guard.

'I am not insensible to the difficulties connected with the present state, and future settlement, of the affairs of the eastern frontier; but I cherish an humble hope that I may be enabled, with the Divine assistance, to become instrumental in founding, upon the results of

hostilities not sought by us, a frontier system calculated to give additional security to the persons and properties of her Majesty's subjects inhabiting the eastern districts.'-Cape Town, 31st March, 1846.

It is impossible to conjecture the precise character of the new system contemplated by the governor of the Cape, in this proclamation, for the future settlement of our relations with the Caffres; but the frontier authorities had already acted with astounding decision, and with unexampled rapidity. There can be no doubt of the act of killing the poor guard of the rescued Caffre being an atrocious outrage. Accordingly, without the loss of an hour, the surrender of the parties to this act was demanded from Sandilla, with the menace of an armed invasion of Caffreland. Satisfaction was refused; and our menace retorted by the chief, with a threat to invade the colony on his part.

Previous to the 21st of March, the lieutenant-governor acquainted the people of Graham's Town, that it was his fixed determination

To chastise the Caffres most severely-that the period for explanation was past—and that the time had arrived for striking such a blow as might effectually secure the colony against a recurrence of the acts of violence, which for so long a period, says the statement cited, the Caffres had been continually committing within our boundary.'-Graham's Town Journal, March 21st, 1846.

This was only four days after the last outrage, on which the governor relies in his proclamation.

On the 31st of March the lieutenant-governor issued a proclamation at Graham's Town

Making known for the first time the name of the chiefs who had refused to give satisfaction to the government for the last outrage, and who had thus forced it into a war with them against its will. These chiefs are Sandilla, MACOMO, Botman, and Tola, and all belong to the Gaika tribes.'-Cape Frontier Times, April 7.

The local newspaper quoted for these facts makes very important additions:

'It seems that the operations of the troops will be directed against these chiefs and their people; whilst the other chiefs, if they stand aloof from the contest, will not be molested. This will be the proper course. There is a case against these four chiefs, which will satisfy the Home Government and the world, that the war about to be commenced is a righteous one, and could not be avoided. But the case is not so clear against the other chiefs. We are not aware that any of the Slambie or Congo chiefs, with the exception of Pato, have given just cause of offence to the government. We believe that there

is not single cattle claim against these chiefs unsatisfied, and that very few robberies have been traced into their territory since the last war. Eno, also, the oldest chief of Caffreland, a Gaika chief, had even on his death-bed enjoined his people not to join in hostilities against the colony.'

The same journal adds that

'Sandilla had offered to give up the rescued prisoner, and pay for the murder; and Macomo has offered to take the oath of neutrality. Both have protested that they have no wish or intention to go to war.'

The colonial government persevered. The governor arrived on the frontier; and twelve hundred of our soldiers were marched into Caffreland on the 11th of April.

The Caffres retaliated upon the colony so furiously, as at the outset to compel most of the troops to shut themselves up in their posts, until reinforcements from all parts of the colony, to the number of twelve thousand, should arrive on the frontier. The loss of life was considerable on this occasion; the loss of property and the expense enormous. One important new post was abandoned, and the governor retired to Graham's Town.

Upon these facts, dates, and documents, with one addition, the justice of the whole case may be safely decided. Whatever details are still to arrive, cannot alter the character of what has been done. The addition referred to is a remarkably candid statement made by the lieutenant-governor of the frontier, upon a point of the greatest importance-namely, the extent to which a war-spirit prevails on our side, upon which topic the governor's proclamation expatiates so largely in reference to the young Caffres.

At a meeting with some of the principal inhabitants of Graham's Town, upon the occasion of alarm in January and February last, the lieutenant-governor, in reply to a question, said—

That he had never thought there existed among the frontier people, a desire of war with the Caffres; THAT NO DOUBT THERE WERE IN THE COLONY, AS ELSEWHERE, RESTLESS AND UNRULY SPIRITS WHO DESIRED WAR; but such a feeling he believed was quite opposed to the sentiments of the frontier inhabitants. In case of an outbreak, the colonists are entirely innocent of having done any thing to cause it, and I shall be ready,' said he, 'to take the responsibility of defending them upon myself.'-Cape Frontier Times, 10th February, 1846.

This admission of the existence of a war party in the Cape Colony-(a party bent upon war with the Caffres, and an admission made in the presence of a body of the frontier inhabitants, to whose generally pacific character the lieutenant-governor was anxious to do justice,)-is of great importance at a time when the determination of the Cape government to fight the

Caffres, in order to crush their war-party in general,' has already led to great disasters.

Deeply as these disasters are to be lamented in themselves, they are far more deserving of attention, as new proofs of the little knowledge possessed by the Cape authorities concerning the power of the Caffres to do mischief to the frontier, and as intimations of a new course of policy, which cannot fail to destroy for many years the prospect of Caffre civilization.

In these points of view a full and fair examination of the acts of the Cape government is indispensable; and that examination will show the great evil of parliament having abandoned all supervision over that government since 1837.

The lieutenant-governor of the frontier, and the governor of the Cape, concur in exonerating the inhabitants of the frontier of all injustice against the Caffres during the last seven years. Not a solitary act' of that character has been done, says the proclamation of the governor. There exists among the frontier people no desire of war with the Caffres, says the lieutenantgovernor. If violent language may justly be called an act, there would be no difficulty in producing from the frontier newspapers multitudes of passages, which would establish very different conclusions respecting the writers and the readers on the frontier, even after making all proper allowance for temporary excitement. But it is not the INHABITANTS of the colony with whom this question is to be settled. They do not govern the colony, or determine its relation with the Caffres. Before the last invasion of 1834-5, they were amongst the most earnest to call for the reform of the old system. They suffered the most from the evils of that old system, and for its consequences the loss of life and property in that invasion. The new system has been administered by the officers of the Crown, not by the colonists: and the true question is, not what acts of violence the colonists may have committed, but whether the governor in Cape Town, and the lieutenant-governor on the frontier have done their duty wisely, since the treaties of 1837. Those treaties established a new system, under most remarkable circumstances, of which the principal was that the local government, not the colonists, had wronged the Caffres; and the point to be now decided is, whether the local government has again wronged them, or not. In former days, and especially against the Hottentots and Bushmen, much turned upon the conduct of individuals towards them. Of late years, and especially in the case of the Caffres, the quarrel has been a national, not an individual one; and there are several passages in the foregoing proclamation which raise a very painful impression that the governor of the Cape has taken an unfair and rash view of the cha

racter of the Caffres, and of the national quarrel, as it now stands.

The testimony extracted above from a recent frontier journal, and given in the very heat of the present war, at its declaration, is positive, that powerful tribes of Caffres have committed very few robberies since the last war,' and that their chiefs have duly discharged the claims of the colonists in the few cases which have occurred. Again, Old Eno, one of the Gaika chiefs, or belonging to the tribe now so deeply involved as the first objects of our vengeance, has just died, and carried to his grave the grateful homage of the Cape frontier journals, as the firm friend to the colony; in confirmation of which testimony it deserves to be recorded that our principal officers near his village attended his burial, to the great satisfaction of his tribe. This is the case of one whose name will be familiar to those who have attended to the frontier feuds of the last forty years. A much stronger answer may be given to the governor's sweeping and unjust accusation against the Caffres as having 'from the first' grossly broken their faith, as pledged to observe the treaties of 1837. In support of this charge he says that it will not be necessary in his proclamation to go further back than September 1844, when he met the chiefs on the frontier.' But the subsequent events adduced in the proclamations completely refute the portions disadvantageous to the Caffres. The governor required their consent to certain changes in the treaties of 1837. They acquiesced. Under these changes 'depredations upon the colony, in a great measure, if not altogether, ceased for above eight

months.'

The means of affecting so desirable a state of things, are shown by the governor's own account to be at our own command: :

The erection of Post Victoria (with the deliberate approval of the Caffre chiefs), the rewards promised and paid for the apprehension of criminals, and the means at the disposal of government to punish crime,' says the proclamation, combined their influence to relieve the frontier inhabitants from the harassing and vexatious system of plunder to which they had long been exposed.'

Strange to say, the very next year we withdrew these safeguards. Having pursued beyond the northern frontier, in reference to the emigrant farmers, an anti-colonizing policy, as grossly impolitic, as before the invasion of 1834-5, we had followed up an encroaching policy in Caffreland, our troops were despatched in 1845 from the eastern frontier to fight the emigrants. Thereupon,' says the governor, depredations recommenced, and they have never since ceased.'