rtaking at the
same time not to interfere with any of the Native tribes north of the
Orange River.

As Cathcart remarked in his letters--the Sovereignty bubble had burst,
and the silly Sovereignty farce was played out.

[Sidenote: The Diamond Fields]

[17] It must not be forgotten that as long as the Free State was English
territory it was supposed to include that strip of ground now known as
Kimberley and the Diamond Fields; English title deeds had been issued
during the Orange River Sovereignty in respect of the ground in
question, which was considered to belong to the Sovereignty, and to be
under the jurisdiction of one of the Sovereignty Magistrates. At the
reestablishment of the Free State it consequently became a part of the
Orange Free State.

[Sidenote: The Basutos.]

Not fifteen years had elapsed since the Convention between England and
the Free State before it was broken by the English. It had been solemnly
stipulated that England would not interfere in Native affairs north of
the Orange River. The Basutos had murdered the Freestaters, plundered
them, ravished their wives, and committed endless acts of violence.
After a bitter struggle of three years, the Freestaters had succeeded in
inflicting a well-merited chastisement on the Basutos, when the British
intervened in 1869 in favour of the Natives, notwithstanding the fact
that they had reiterated their declaration of non-interference in the
Aliwal Convention.

[Sidenote: The Diamond Fields.]

[18] To return to the Diamond Fields, as Froude remarks: "The ink on the
Treaty of Aliwal was scarcely dry when diamonds were discovered in large
quantities in a district which we had ourselves treated as part of the
Orange Territory." Instead of honestly saying that the British
Government relied on its superior strength, and on this ground demanded
the territory in question, which contained the richest diamond fields in
the world, it hypocritically pretended that the real reason of its
depriving the Free State of the Diamond Fields was that they belonged to
a Native, notwithstanding the fact that this contention was falsified
by the judgment of the English Courts. [19] "There was a notion also,"
says Froude, "that the finest diamond mine in the world ought not to be
lost to the British Empire."

The ground was thereupon taken from the Boers, and "from that day no
Boer in South Africa has been able to trust to English promises."

Later, when Brand went to Eng