ve been for the
British Government to have returned to the provisions of the Sand River
Convention. If the Annexation was wrong in itself--without taking the
Boer victories into consideration--then it ought to have been abolished
with all its consequences, and there ought to have been a _restitutio in
integrum_ of that Republic; that is to say, the Boers ought to have been
placed in exactly the same position as they were in before the
Annexation. But what happened? With a magnanimity which the English
press and English orators are never tired of vaunting, they gave us back
our country, but the violation of the Sand River Convention remained
unredressed. Instead of a sovereign freedom, we obtained free internal
administration, subject to the suzerain power of Her Majesty over the
Republic. This occurred by virtue of the Convention of Pretoria, the
preamble of which bestowed self-government on the Transvaal State with
the express reservation of suzerainty. The articles of that Convention
endeavoured to establish a _modus vivendi_ between such self-government
and the aforesaid suzerainty. Under this bi-lateral arrangement the
Republic was governed for three years by two heterogeneous
principles--that of representative self-government, and that
represented by the British Agent. This system was naturally unworkable;
it was also clear that the arrangement of 1881 was not to be considered
as final.

[Sidenote: The London Convention.]

The suzerainty was above all an absurdity which was not possible to
reconcile with practical efficacy. So with the approval of the British
Government a Deputation went to London in 1883, in order to get the
status of the Republic altered, and to substitute a new Convention for
that of Pretoria. The Deputation proposed to return to the position as
laid down by the Sand River Convention, and that was in fact the only
upright and statesmanlike arrangement possible. But according to the
evidence of one of the witnesses on the British side, the Rev. D.P.
Faure, the Ministry suffered from a very unwholesome dread of
Parliament; so it would not agree to this, and submitted a counter
proposal (see Appendix A.), which eventually was accepted by the
Deputation, and the conditions of which are to-day of the greatest
importance to us.

This Draft was constructed out of the Pretoria Convention with such
alterations as were designed to make it acceptable to the Deputation.
The preamble under which complete