a few years later, in 1888, a treaty
was concluded with Lo Bengula, the Matabili king, whereby he undertook
not to cede territory to, or make a treaty with, any foreign power
without the consent of the British High Commissioner. The west was thus
secured against the further advance of the Boers, while on the eastern
shore the hoisting of the British flag at St. Lucia Bay in 1884 (a spot
already ceded by Panda in 1843), followed by the conclusion (in 1887) of
a treaty with the Tonga chiefs, by which they undertook not to make any
treaty with any other power, announced the resolution of the British
crown to hold the coast line up to the Portuguese territories.

This policy of preventing the extension of Boer dominion over the
natives was, however, accompanied by a willingness to oblige the
Transvaal people in other ways. Though they had not observed the
conditions of the Convention of 1881, the Boers had continued to
importune the British government for an ampler measure of independence.
In 1884 they succeeded in inducing Lord Derby, then Colonial Secretary,
to agree to a new Convention, which thereafter defined the relations
between the British crown and the South African Republic, a title now at
last formally conceded. By this instrument (called the Convention of
London),[32] whose articles were substituted for the articles of the
Convention of 1881, the control of foreign policy stipulated for in the
Pretoria Convention of 1881 was cut down to a provision that the
Republic should "conclude no treaty with any State or nation other than
the Orange Free State, nor with any native tribe to the eastward or
westward of the Republic," without the approval of the Queen. The
declarations of the two previous Conventions (of 1852 and 1881) against
slavery were renewed, and there was a "most favoured nation" clause with
provisions for the good treatment of strangers entering the Republic.
Nothing was said as to the "suzerainty of her Majesty" mentioned in the
Convention of 1881. The Boers have contended that this omission is
equivalent to a renunciation, but to this it has been (among other
things) replied that as that suzerainty was recognized not in the
"articles" of the instrument of 1881, but in its introductory paragraph,
it has not been renounced, and still subsists.[33]

A few years later, the amity which this Convention was meant to secure
was endangered by the plan formed by a body of Boer farmers and
adventurers to carr