e and
friendly intercourse with them.

'9. We quit this colony under the full assurance that the English
Government has nothing more to require of us, and will allow us to
govern ourselves without its interference in future.

'10. We are now leaving the fruitful land of our birth, in which we
have suffered enormous losses and continual vexation, and are about
to enter a strange and dangerous territory; but we go with a firm
reliance on an all-seeing, just, and merciful God, whom we shall
always fear, and humbly endeavour to obey.

'In the name of all who leave the colony with me,

'P. RETIEF.'

But formal declarations such as the above are not in all instances to
be trusted. It is much safer to compare numerous documents written at
different times, by different persons, and under different
circumstances. For our subject this means of information is as
complete as can be desired. The correspondence of the emigrants with
the Cape Government was the work of many individuals, and extended
over many years. The letters are usually of great length, badly
constructed, and badly spelt--the productions, in short, of
uneducated men; but so uniform is the vein of thought running through
them all, that there is not the slightest difficulty in condensing
them into a dozen pages. When analyzed, the statements contained in
them are found to consist of two charges, one against the Imperial
Government, the other against the agents in South Africa of the
London Missionary Society.

The Imperial Government was charged with exposing the white
inhabitants of the colony, without protection, to robbery and murder
by the blacks; with giving credence in every dispute to statements
made by interested persons in favour of savages, while refusing to
credit the testimony, no matter how reliable, of colonists of
European extraction; with liberating the slaves in an unjust manner;
and generally with such undue partiality for persons with black skins
and savage habits, as to make it preferable to seek a new home in the
wilderness than remain under the English flag.

The missionaries of the London Society were charged with usurping
authority that should properly belong to the civil magistrate; with
misrepresenting facts; and with advocating schemes directly hostile
to the progress of civilization, and to the observance of order. And
it was asserted that the influence of these missionaries was all
powerful at the Colonial Office in London, by