Anna Elizabeth Steenekamp as expressed in _The Cape Monthly
Magazine_ for September, 1876, is to be found at pp. 46, 47
of his "A Lifetime in South Africa" (Smith, Elder, 1900).]

[Sidenote: The birth of the republic.]

[Sidenote: Sir George Grey.]

The results of this secession of something like one-fourth of the
Franco-Dutch population are common knowledge. Out of the scattered
settlements founded by the Emigrant Farmers beyond the borders of the
Colony were created, in 1852 (Sand River Convention) and 1854
(Bloemfontein Convention), the two Boer Republics, which half a century
later withstood for two years and eight months the whole available
military force of the British Empire. The first effect of the secession
was to erect the republican Dutch into a rival power which bid against
the British Government for the territory and allegiance of the natives.
Secession, therefore, made the inevitable task of establishing the
supremacy of the white man in South Africa infinitely more costly both
in blood and treasure. The British nation accepted the task, which fell
to it as paramount power, with the greatest reluctance. The endless and
apparently aimless Kafir wars exhausted the patience of the country, and
the destruction of an entire British regiment by Ketshwayo's[4] _impis_
created a feeling of deep resentment against the great High
Commissioner, whose policy was held--unreasonably enough--responsible
for the military disaster of Isandlhwana. Two opportunities of
recovering the lost solidarity of the Europeans were presented before
the republican Dutch had set themselves definitely to work for the
supremacy of South Africa through reunion with their colonial kinsfolk.
That both were lost was due at bottom to the disgust of the British
people at the excessive cost and burden of establishing a civilised
administration over the native population in South Africa. But in both
cases the immediate agency of disaster was the refusal of the Home
Government to listen to the advice of its local representative. Sir
George Grey would have regained the lost solidarity of the Europeans by
taking advantage of the natural recoil manifested among the Free State
Dutch from independence and responsibility towards the more settled and
prosperous life assured by British rule. His proposal was to unite the
Cape Colony, Natal, and the Free State in a federal legislature,
consisting of representatives chosen by p