what went by the
name of the Orange River Sovereignty, and in a year or two secured such
good and peaceful government within its borders as to attract
considerable numbers of English and Scotch colonists. The malcontents
retired across the Vaal. Then came an abrupt change of policy in the
Home Government, a sudden desire actuated mainly by fear of more native
wars, to cancel all that was possible of our commitments in South
Africa. The Transvaal, by the Sand River Convention, was declared
independent in 1852, the Orange Free State, by the Convention of
Bloemfontein, in 1854. This was to rush from one extreme to the other.
It was as though in 1847 we had erected Quebec into a sovereign State
instead of giving it responsible government under the Crown, or as if in
1843 we had been so deeply convinced by O'Connell's second agitation for
repeal that we had leapt straight from coercive government to the
foundation of an independent Republic in Ireland, instead of giving her
the kind of Home Rule which she was asking for.

It was not yet too late to mend. In 1854, when the cession of the Free
State had just been carried out, Sir George Grey, whom we have met with
in Australia and New Zealand, came as High Commissioner to the Cape. In
1859 he made the proposal I alluded to in the last chapter for
federating all the South African States, including the two new
Republics. There is little doubt that the scheme was feasible then. The
Orange Free State was willing to join, and, indeed, had initiated
proposals for Federation. Its adhesion would have compelled the
Transvaal, always more hostile to British rule, to come in eventually,
if not at once; for the relations of the two Republics were friendly
enough at the time to permit one man, Pretorius, to be President of both
States.

The scheme was rejected by Lord Derby's Tory Cabinet, and Grey, a
"dangerous man," as Lord Carnarvon, the Colonial Secretary, dubbed him,
was recalled.

Sixteen years later, in 1875, Lord Carnarvon himself, as a member of the
Disraeli Ministry, revived the project. Converted in his views of the
Colonies, like many of his Tory colleagues at this period, he had
carried through Parliament the Federation of Canada in 1867, and hoped
to do the same with South Africa. But it was too late. The Cape
Parliament, now in possession of a responsible Ministry, was hostile,
while twenty years of self-government, for the most part under the great
President Brand, had