t its chief value lies in the
impression produced by South African politics upon a penetrating and
observant mind trained under wholly different conditions. Froude
would not have been a true disciple of Carlyle if he had felt or
expressed much sympathy with the native race. He wanted them to be
comfortable. For freedom he did not consider them fit. It was the
Boers who really attracted him, and the man he admired the most in
South Africa was President Brand. The sketch of the two Dutch
Republics in his Report is drawn with a very friendly hand. He
thought, not without reason, that they had been badly treated. Their
independence, which they did not then desire, had been forced upon
them by Lord Grey and the Duke of Newcastle. The Sand River
Convention of 1852, and the Orange River Convention of 1854,
resulted from British desire to avoid future responsibility outside
Cape Colony and Natal. As for the Dutch treatment of the Kaffirs, it
had never in Froude's opinion been half so bad as Pine's treatment
of Langalibalele. By the second article of the Orange River
Convention, renewed and ratified at Aliwal after the Basuto war in
1869, Her Majesty's Government promised not to make any agreement
with native chiefs north of the Vaal River. Yet, when diamonds were
discovered north of the Vaal in Griqualand West, the territory was
purchased by Lord Kimberley from Nicholas Waterboer, without the
consent, and notwithstanding the protests, of the Orange Free State.
But although Lord Kimberley assented to the annexation of Griqualand
West in 1871, he only did so on the distinct understanding that Cape
Colony would undertake to administer the Diamond Fields, and this
the Cape Ministers refused to do, lest they should offend their
Dutch constituents.

It was not till 1878, when all differences with the Free State had
been settled, and the Transvaal was a British possession, that
Griqualand West became an integral part of Cape Colony. In January,
1876, Brand was still asking for arbitration, and Carnarvon was
still refusing it.

When he explained the Colonial Secretary's policy to the Colonial
Secretary himself Froude came very near explaining it away. The
Conference, he said, was only intended to deal with the native
question and the question of Griqualand. Was Confederation then a
dream? Froude himself, in a private letter to Molteno, dated April
29th, 1875, wrote, "Lord Carnarvon's earnest desire since he came
into office has bee