r even in the minds of the statesmen
whose business it was to find the money needed for these increasing
charges on the imperial treasury; while the philanthropic interest in
the native races, stimulated by the discoveries of Livingstone, now took
the form not of proposing to leave them to themselves, but of desiring
to protect them against the adventurers, whether of Boer or of English
blood, whom it was found impossible to prevent from pressing forward
into the wilderness.

It is remarkable that the change, as yet only an incipient change, in
the public opinion of the English people, who now began to feel the
desire not merely to retain but to expand their colonial dominion,
should have become apparent just at the time when there occurred that
discovery of diamonds which showed that this hitherto least progressive
of the larger Colonies possessed unsuspected stores of wealth. The
discovery brought a new stream of enterprising and ambitious men into
the country, and fixed the attention of the world upon it. It was a
turning point in South African history.

That change in the views of the British Government on which I have been
commenting found at this moment a fresh expression in another quarter.
In 1869 the Portuguese Government concluded a commercial treaty with the
South African Republic, under which it seemed probable that a
considerable trade might spring up between the Portuguese coast of the
Indian Ocean and the interior. This called attention to the port of
Lourenco Marques, on the shore of Delagoa Bay, the best haven upon that
coast. Great Britain claimed it under a cession which had been obtained
from a native chief of the country by a British naval exploring
expedition in 1822. Portugal, however, resisted the claim. In 1872 it
was referred to the arbitration of Marshal MacMahon, then President of
the French Republic, and in 1875 he awarded the territory in dispute to
Portugal. Both cases were weak, and it is not easy to say which was the
weaker, for, although the Portuguese had undoubtedly been first on the
ground, their occupation, often disturbed by the native tribes, had been
extremely precarious. The decision was a serious blow to British hopes,
and has become increasingly serious with the further development of the
country. Yet it was mitigated by a provision contained in the agreement
for arbitration that the Power against whom the decision might go should
have thereafter from the successful Power a r