n they referred to any
other subject, that the good Governor had been reproved, and finally
deprived of his office, because he had told the plain truth,
regardless of the London Missionary Society; and had endeavoured to
mete out to black criminals the same justice that he would have meted
out had they been white. There is now no one in South Africa who does
not agree with the emigrants in this matter. Nearly half a century
has passed away since Sir Benjamin D'Urban was forced into retirement
by Lord Glenelg; and during that period the principal measures which
he proposed have been approved of and adopted, while the successors
of those missionaries who were his bitter opponents are at present
among the strongest advocates of his system of dealing with the
natives.

Sir Benjamin D'Urban remained in South Africa, after being deprived
of office, until the reversal of his policy towards the natives was
admitted by most people even in England to have been a mistake. He
did not leave the Cape until April, 1846, just after the commencement
of the War of the Axe.

Concerning the liberation of the slaves, there is less in this
correspondence than one might reasonably expect to find. Many scores
of pages can be examined without any allusion whatever to it. Nowhere
is there a single word to be found in favour of slavery as an
institution; the view of the emigrants, with hardly an exception,
being fairly represented in the following sentence, taken from a
letter of the Volksraad at Natal to Sir George Napier: 'A long and
sad experience has sufficiently convinced us of the injury, loss, and
dearness of slave labour, so that neither slavery nor the slave trade
will ever be permitted among us.'

[The allusions to the emancipation of slaves, and to slavery as an
institution, will be considered by many to need some modification or
explanation. The Dutch even to-day speak of the emancipation as the
real cause of the great exodus; and the system of indenture, and
the treatment of natives generally by the Boers, cannot fairly be
regarded as warranting the view expressed by Mr. Theal in connection
with this letter to Sir George Napier.]

It is alleged, however, that the emancipation, as it was carried out,
was an act of confiscation. It is stated that most of the slaves were
brought to the colony in English ships, and sold by English subjects;
that when, in 1795, the colony was invited by English officers of
high rank to place itself