exactly what they had been trying for years to incur, and the
condition of their credit had made it impossible to do.

The causes of discontent before given were serious, but the failure
to fulfil promises was not deliberate. Circumstances combined to
prevent Sir Bartle Frere from visiting the Transvaal, as intended and
promised. Native wars (Gaika and Galeka), disagreements between the
Colonial and Imperial authorities, the obstructions and eventual
dismissal of the Molteno-Merriman Ministry--the first under
Responsible Government--Natal and Diamond-fields affairs, and, above
all, the Zulu War, all combined to prevent Sir Bartle Frere from
fulfilling his obligations to settle Transvaal matters.

In the meantime two deputations had been sent to England,
representing the Boers' case against annexation. The active party
among the Boers, _i.e._, the Voortrekker party, the most anti-British
and Republican, though small in itself, had now succeeded in
completely dominating the rest of the Boers, and galvanizing them
into something like national life and cohesion again--a result
achieved partly by earnest persuasion, but largely also by a kind of
terrorism.

Sir Bartle Frere, who managed at last to visit the Transvaal, in
April, 1879, had evidence of this on his journey up, and in a
despatch to Sir M. Hicks Beach from Standerton on the 6th of that
month he wrote:

I was particularly impressed by the replies of a very fine specimen
of a Boer of the old school. He had been six weeks in an English
prison, daily expecting execution as a rebel, and had been wounded by