e Boers and
the Zulus led England to extend her direct sovereign rights to Natal for
the peace, protection and good government of all classes of men, who may
have settled in the interior or vicinity of this important part of South
Africa.

5.--_England, the Transvaal, and the Orange Free State._

Far from being anxious to assume direct control over these territories,
the Cape Government for a long time disregarded the petitions for
annexation addressed to it by the inhabitants of Durban; until one fine
day, a Dutch vessel laden with provisions for the Boers, arriving in
Port Natal, the Captain, Smellekamp, took it upon himself to assure them
of the protection of the King of Holland. Thereupon, England established
a small garrison under the command of Captain Smith. It was attacked by
the Boers; a volunteer, named Dick King, contrived to make his escape
from the town, and after an adventurous journey reached Grahamstown.
Troops were despatched by the Government, and it was incorporated with
the Cape Colony; some of the Boers left Natal, some remained; their
descendants are there to-day.

In 1848 the Government entered into a series of treaties known as the
"Napier Treaties," for the constitution of Native States extending from
Pondoland, on the frontiers of Natal, to the district of which Kimberley
forms the centre (see _Great Britain and the Dutch Republics_). Great
Britain demanded no more than peace and guarantees of security on her
frontiers. Dr. Kuyper himself admits this, when he sums up in the
following sentence, the history of the emancipation of the Transvaal and
the Orange Free State.

"Natal was to remain an English Colony, but the English were to
retire from the Orange and Vaal rivers; it was thus that the
Independence of the Transvaal was recognised by the Treaty of Sand
River, of 17th January, 1852; and the Independence of the Free
State by the Convention of Bloemfontein, of 22nd February, 1854."

Dr. Kuyper is compelled to admit that England was not forced into this
act of generosity, she having on the 29th August, 1848, defeated the
Boers at Boomplaats, on the Orange table land.

But Dr. Kuyper forgets to say that the majority of the Free Staters were
far from desiring the gift made to them by the British Government in
1854. They considered it not as a measure of liberation, but as an
abandonment to the tender mercies of the Basutos. Some years later the
Orange Free State