t after
having spent all his private means on behalf of the State he should not
be left destitute. The statement that the Annexation was effected
under a threat that if the Government did not give its consent Sir T.
Shepstone would let loose the Zulus on the country is also a wicked and
malicious invention, but with this I shall deal more at length further
on.

It must not, however, be understood that the Annexation was a foregone
conclusion, or that Sir T. Shepstone came up to the Transvaal with
the fixed intention of annexing the country without reference to its
position, merely with a view of extending British influence, or, as
has been absurdly stated, in order to benefit Natal. He had no fixed
purpose, whether it were necessary or no, of exercising the full powers
given to him by his commission; on the contrary, he was all along most
anxious to find some internal resources within the State by means of
which Annexation could be averted, and of this fact his various letters
and despatches give full proof. Thus, in his letter to President
Burgers, of the 9th April 1877, in which he announces his intention
of annexing the country, he says: "I have more than once assured your
Honour that if I could think of any plan by which the independence of
the State could be maintained by its own internal resources I would
most certainly not conceal that plan from you." It is also incidentally
remarkably confirmed by a passage in Mr. Burgers' posthumous defence, in
which he says: "Hence I met Shepstone alone in my house, and opened up
the subject of his mission. With a candour that astonished me, he avowed
that his purpose was to annex the country, as he had sufficient grounds
for it, unless I could so alter as to satisfy his Government. My plan of
a new constitution, modelled after that of America, of a standing police
force of two hundred mounted men, was then proposed. He promised to give
me time to call the Volksraad together, and to _abandon his design_ if
the Volksraad would adopt these measures, and the country be willing to
submit to them, and to carry them out." Further on he says: "In justice
to Shepstone I must say that I would not consider an officer of my
Government to have acted faithfully if he had not done what Shepstone
did."

It has also been frequently alleged in England, and always seems to be
taken as the groundwork of argument in the matter of the Annexation,
that the Special Commissioner represented that th