"annexed the Transvaal."
The present baronet, the late High Commissioner's son, called him to
account at once; but it required three successive letters[152] to
wring from Mr. John Morley a specific acknowledgement of his error.
The evidence which establishes the fact that Frere did not annex the
Transvaal is the following statement, bearing his signature and
published in February, 1881:[153]

[Footnote 152: Published in _The Times_, September 30th,
1899.]

[Footnote 153: In _The Nineteenth Century_ for that month.]

"It was an act which in no way originated with me, over which I
had no control, and with which I was only subsequently
incidentally connected.... It was a great question then, as now,
whether the annexation was justifiable."

This was on the 5th. On the 27th a letter was published in _The Times_
in which Sir William Harcourt wrote, in respect of the suzerainty
question:

"All further argument is now superfluous, as the matter is
decisively disposed of by the publication at Pretoria of Lord
Derby's telegram of February 27th, 1884, in which the effect of
the London Convention of that date was stated in the following
words: 'There will be the same complete independence in the
Transvaal as in the Orange Free State.'"

In a letter written on the day following, and published in _The Times_
of October 2nd, the writer of the present work pointed out, among
other inaccuracies, that the words actually telegraphed by Lord Derby
were: "same complete internal independence in the Transvaal as in
Orange Free State." That is to say, before the word "independence" the
word "internal"--vitally important to the present issue--was inserted
in the original, and omitted in the Boer version, from which Sir
William Harcourt had quoted without referring to the Blue-book, Cd.
4,036.

[Sidenote: Its injurious effect.]

The third instance occurred some three months later. Mr. James Bryce,
speaking on December 14th, 1899, stated that Sir Bartle Frere "sent
to govern the Transvaal Sir Owen Lanyon, an officer unfitted by
training and character for so delicate and difficult a task."[154] The
following passage, which the present writer subsequently published,
affords precise and overwhelming evidence of the absolute untruth of
Mr. Bryce's assertion. It appears in a letter written by Sir Bartle
Frere on December 13th, 1878, to Mr. (now Sir) Gordon Sprigg,