n of Sir T.
Shepstone's pro-annexation arguments, the following extract from the
latter's despatches is quoted by Aylward and others:

EXTRACT FROM DESPATCH, DATED UTRECHT, TRANSVAAL, JANUARY 29, 1878.

_Sir T. Shepstone to Sir H. Bulwer_.

Par. 12. 'Although this question has existed for many years, and the
settlement of it has been long postponed, yet on no former occasion
has it assumed so serious an aspect, or included so wide an area of
territory; never before has there existed any bar to the farmers
occupying their farms after an absence more or less temporary, caused
by a temporary and local scare. Practically, the line of occupied
farms has not been heretofore affected by the dispute about the
beaconed boundary, but now the prohibition to these has become
absolute by Zulu claims and action. Ruin is staring the farmers in
the face, and their position is, _for the time, worse under Her
Majesty's Government than ever it was under the Republic_.'

Had Sir T. Shepstone's power been as great as represented, it is fair
to suppose that it would have been exerted, and would have prevailed
in support of his own administration; but it seems clear that he
could do nothing; and as to the reality of the danger, nothing could
better establish that than the unpleasant admissions in the foregoing
extract and the initial disasters in the Zulu War a year later. The
Boers' protective power was not lessened by the annexation--quite
otherwise. It was supplemented by British money, arms, and soldiers,
and the prestige of the British flag, and yet things happened as
above described. What would they have been under the old conditions?

The day before he issued the proclamation Sir T. Shepstone sent a
messenger to Cetewayo, telling him that the Transvaal would be under
British sovereignty, and warning him against aggression in that
direction. Cetewayo replied: 'I thank my father Somtseu (Shepstone)
for his message. I am glad that he has sent it, because the Dutch
have tired me out, and I intended to fight with them once, only once,
and to drive them over the Vaal. Kabana, you see my impis are
gathered. It was to fight the Dutch I called them together. Now I
will send them back to their houses.' (C. 1883, p. 19.)

Colonel A.W. Durnford; R.E., in a memorandum of July 5, 1877, wrote:

About this time (April 10) Cetewayo had massed his forces in three
corps on the borders, and would undoubtedly have swept the Transvaal,
country not b