(_Supplementary._)
THE QUESTION OF THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A REPRESENTATIVE ASSEMBLY
IN THE CAPE COLONY—THE CONVICT QUESTION—KAFIR WAR—RECALL OF
SIR HARRY SMITH—HIS DEPARTURE FROM THE CAPE.
As early as 1841 the inhabitants of Cape Town had petitioned that their
present system of government by a Governor and a Legislative Council
consisting of officials and persons nominated by the Governor should
give place to a constitution resembling that of the mother-country,
to consist, that is to say, of a Governor and an Executive Council,
both appointed by the Crown, and a Legislative Assembly composed of
representatives freely elected by the people. Lord Stanley, in reply,
expressed a general concurrence with the prayer of the petitioners,
but desired further information. To this request no answer had been
received, when on the appointment of Sir Henry Pottinger to the
government of the Cape, Lord Grey instructed him (2nd Nov. 1846) that
Her Majesty’s Government entertained the strongest prepossessions
in favour of a representative system, and desired the Governor’s
assistance and advice. “Some difficulties,” he added, “may be wisely
encountered, and some apparent risks well incurred, in reliance on the
resources which every civilized society, and especially every society
of British birth and origin, will always discover within themselves for
obviating the dangers incident to measures resting on any broad and
solid principle of truth and justice.”
Sir Henry Pottinger, during his year of office, was too much occupied
with the Kafir War to carry out the instructions given him in regard to
the establishment of representative government, but the instructions
he had received were repeated on the appointment of Sir Harry Smith.
He lost no time in acting on them, and on the 29th July, 1848, the
very day on which he started to put down the rising beyond the Orange,
he transmitted to Lord Grey the opinions of a number of colonial
authorities on the questions at issue, and stated that they all, and
he with them, agreed on the main point that a representative form of
government was desirable. Lord Grey then put the matter in the hands
of a Committee of the Board of Trade and Plantations, who drew up the
main lines of a constitution, which received Her Majesty’s approval. On
31st January, 1850, Lord Grey transmitted this Report to Sir Harry. It
laid down that all subordinate arrangements should be made by Ordinance
in the Colony, and Sir Harry was instructed to collect information and
make all other arrangements for this purpose.
Meanwhile the Colony had been thrown into a state of hysterical
agitation by an unfortunate arrangement made by Lord Grey to send
thither some convicts from Bermuda in H.M.S. _Neptune_. These convicts
were Irish peasants who had been driven into crime during the time of
the famine, and Lord Grey seems to have thought that on this account
less objection would be taken to receiving them. But the name “convict”
was enough. The colonists of the Cape believed that this was only a
beginning and that their country was to be made a convict settlement
and flooded with criminals. An Anti-convict Association was formed, and
the Governor was petitioned to dismiss the _Neptune_ as soon as she
arrived to some other station.
Sir Harry Smith, who from the beginning shared the colonists’ objection
to Lord Grey’s proposal, wrote to that minister on 24th May, 1849,
begging him to revoke his decision, in accordance with the petitions
which he had been forwarding to him since 1st January. On the 29th May
he reported a combination of the people headed by the Anti-convict
Association “to hold in abhorrence any person who may aid the exiles
in landing, and may have any communication with them whatever,” and to
stop the supply of stores to Government. Government officials all over
the country were resigning, but he was still making preparations to
land the exiles and provide for their support on shore.[197] On July
24th he reported that all but one of the unofficial members of the
Legislative Council had resigned, and that on the 17th he had promised
by proclamation that the convicts should not be landed but detained on
shipboard till Her Majesty’s pleasure were known, while declaring he
had no legal power to send them to any other destination.[198]
No reply had been received from Lord Grey to the many appeals which
had been made to him, when on 19th September the _Neptune_ arrived. A
fresh storm of public passion arose, and for the first time since his
accession to office the Governor assembled the Executive Council. They
approved of all his measures, and agreed that it would not be legal
for him to dismiss the vessel. He offered a pledge, however, that he
would resign his office rather than assist in carrying out any measure
for landing the convicts. This declaration allayed the feelings of
more moderate men, but the extremists extended their operations, and
included the navy and the whole body of executive and judicial agents
of the Government under an interdict so long as the _Neptune_ should
remain in Simon’s Bay.
Sir Harry, while curbing the military from any act of retaliation
against the insults heaped on them,[199] was not to be daunted from the
line he had taken up, and with his usual energy devised arrangements
for supplying Government servants with meat and bread. He was thus able
to maintain his position until 13th February, 1850, when, in answer to
a dispatch of 30th September, he received one from Lord Grey dated 5th
December, which authorized him to send the unfortunate convicts to Van
Diemen’s Land.
To return to the question of the new constitution. On the receipt
of Lord Grey’s dispatch of 31st January, 1850, the Governor found
himself at a deadlock owing to the resignation of the five unofficial
members of the Legislative Council in the preceding July. The convict
agitation had spread such a spirit of dissatisfaction in the Colony
that the Governor thought that a Legislative Council filled up by men
who were merely his nominees, would not command public confidence. He
therefore arranged that the Municipalities and District Road Boards
should furnish him with the names of gentlemen whom they would desire
to be appointed, and from these he would fill up the vacancies. He
did not, however, commit himself to nominating the five highest on
the list. As a matter of fact, he chose the four highest, although he
believed their election had been largely procured by electoral devices
emanating from Cape Town, and with them the gentleman who was eleventh,
chosen as having the special confidence of the Eastern Province. No
sooner was the Council thus constituted and assembled than the four
gentlemen above mentioned resigned their seats (20th September), as a
protest against the Governor’s departure from the electoral results
and against the fact that the Legislative Council was called on to
vote the estimates and transact ordinary business instead of merely
preparing the way for a Representative Assembly. These gentlemen were
treated in the Colony as popular heroes, and two of them, Sir A.
Stockenstrom and Mr. Fairbairn, were deputed to proceed to England
to carry on an agitation against the Governor. Their position was,
however, an untenable one, and received no support from Her Majesty’s
Government.[200]
The Governor in his difficulty had taken a step which was not well
received. He had constituted the remaining seven members of the Council
a Commission to draft the ordinances of the proposed constitution, and
on 19th Feb. 1851 suggested to Lord Grey that, there being no chance
of forming a Legislative Council which would have the confidence of
the Colony, the draft ordinances should be ratified in England. This
suggestion was accepted. However, in obedience to Lord Grey’s further
instructions, he set himself in September to fill up the Council,
and found four gentlemen willing to accept the vacant seats. On 10th
October the Council met again. On 16th December the draft ordinances
which had received Her Majesty’s approval in England were read for the
first time, and the second reading was fixed for February, 1852. In
spite of the great eagerness of the Colony to receive representative
government, it was then proposed that the further consideration of the
question should be deferred till the Kafir War was over, and this view
had the support of all the four unofficial members and of two out of
the five official members of the Legislative Council. When, however, it
was represented to the Governor, he promptly replied from his camp at
King William’s Town, in words full of political courage and sagacious
confidence—
“I desire the Legislative Council to proceed to the discussion of
these ordinances as a Government measure, leaving each clause an open
question. I apprehend far greater embarrassments to the Government by
delay than by procedure. I am ordered by Her Majesty’s Government to
proceed, and my own opinion concurs in the expediency of that order. I
see no cause whatever for apprehension as to any public disturbance.
Under any circumstances, however, I do not view a war upon the borders
as affording cause for deferring the grant of a representative
government.”
Thanks, then, to Sir Harry’s firmness the business proceeded, although
it was not till the time of his successor that the long-desired boon of
Representative Government was actually received by the colonists.
Till the end of 1850, in spite of the Anti-convict agitation and the
political unrest caused by the desire for a Representative Assembly,
Sir Harry’s administration had been apparently a highly successful one.
He had felt himself able to send home the 1st Battalion Rifle Brigade
in May, 1850, and so meet the demands for economy pressed on him by
the Home Government. The Orange River Sovereignty had been at peace,
and in British Kaffraria, under the rule of an able officer, Colonel
Mackinnon, the Kafirs seemed, as in 1836, to be making rapid progress
towards becoming orderly and civilized British subjects. But this happy
prospect was now suddenly over-clouded.
However contented the Kafirs at large might be with the new system, the
chiefs suffered a loss of wealth by being no longer able to “eat up”
whomsoever they liked, and with the loss of wealth a loss of dignity.
They felt that their followers were encouraged to appeal for justice
to the British Commissioner and that the feudal power of the chief
was being quietly undermined. Accordingly the Gaika chiefs of British
Kaffraria, Sandilli and his half-brother Macomo, became intriguing
agitators, and found in the terrible drought and distress of 1850 an
opportunity ready to hand for disturbing the peace.
In September of that year, Colonel Mackinnon, instead of his usual
satisfactory reports, wrote that the white colonists were alarmed,
as a new prophet, Umlanjeni, thought to be a creature of Sandilli’s,
was preaching war against the white, while the Kafirs had been on
their side alarmed by a report that the Governor wished to seize all
the chiefs. In consequence of this information, Sir Harry on the 15th
October left Cape Town for the frontier.
Having arrived at King William’s Town on the 20th, he called a meeting
of Kafir chiefs for the 26th. At this meeting great demonstrations of
loyalty were made, and the Governor was greeted with a shout of “Inkosi
Inkulu!” (“Great Chief!”); but Sandilli was absent. On the 29th Sir
Harry threatened him that unless he came and renewed his allegiance, he
would “throw him away” and confiscate his property—and when this threat
produced no effect, formally deposed him and appointed Mr. Brownlee,
the Civil Commissioner, chief of the Gaikas in his place.[201] The
act showed perhaps an over-sanguine estimate of the readiness of the
Kafir mind to recognize British authority as paramount to that of their
feudal chiefs; but at the moment it was approved by Colonel Mackinnon
and other men specially acquainted with the Kafir disposition, as it
was later by the Home Government.
At another meeting held on 5th November, the chiefs of the Gaikas and
other tribes acknowledged one and all that Sandilli by his contumacy
had deserved his fate, and the Governor wrote to Lord Grey, “The crisis
has passed, and, I believe, most happily.” He at once started on his
return journey, and after receiving various congratulatory addresses on
his way, reached Cape Town on the 24th November.
But news of fresh turbulent acts followed him, and (to quote the words
of Mr. Chase[202]) “Sir Harry Smith was to be pitied by all who loved
him—and who that knew him did not?—when he had to write in bitter
disappointment to the Secretary of State on the 5th December, ‘The
quiet I had reported in Kafirland, which I had so much and so just
ground to anticipate, is not realized, and I start this evening.’” He
left with the 73rd Regiment on the _Hermes_ for the frontier, destined
not to quit it again for sixteen months, and then as a man superseded
in his office.
Having landed at the Buffalo mouth on 9th December, he reached King
William’s Town the same night, and next day by proclamation called
on all loyal citizens to enrol themselves as volunteers. The Kafirs
were arming, and the farmers with their flocks and herds had fled
in panic from the frontier. After a meeting with the chiefs (14th),
which was again considered satisfactory, Sir Harry moved his troops to
positions round the Amatola Mountains to prevent any combined movement
between Kreili and the Gaikas. He proceeded himself to Fort Cox.
Here on the 19th he held another meeting, at which, except Anta and
Sandilli (who had now been outlawed), all the chiefs were present with
their councillors and 3000 of their people. When Sir Harry vigorously
denounced Sandilli’s conduct they apparently acquiesced, but asked the
Governor why he had brought the troops?
From Fort Cox Sir Harry sent Colonel Mackinnon on 24th December with a
patrol up the gorge of the Keiskamma in the direction in which Sandilli
was supposed to be hiding, it being thought that when the troops
approached he would either surrender or flee the country. Mackinnon
was, however, attacked in a defile, and twelve of his men were killed.
And so broke out a new Kafir War, a “fitting legacy,” says Chase, “of
the retrocessive policy of 1836,” and, we may add, unfortunately not
the last disastrous war to which those words could be applied.
Next day (Christmas Day) three of the four military villages which had
been established in British Kaffraria not quite three years before,
Woburn, Auckland, and Juanasburg, were treacherously attacked by
Kafirs, many of whom had just shared the Christmas dinner of their
victims, and the settlers murdered. The Gaikas sprang to arms; every
chief but Pato joined in the rising; and of a body of 400 Kafir police
365 rushed to their tribes with their arms and ammunition.
Meanwhile the Commander-in-Chief was shut up in Fort Cox in the Amatola
basin, with hordes of wild Kafirs filling the bush and heights on every
side, and the prospect before him of speedy starvation if he remained,
or death from a bullet or an assagai if he issued forth. Colonel
Somerset from Fort Hare made two unsuccessful attempts at relief. In
the second, on 29th December, after fighting for four hours, he was
forced to retire. After this he wrote to Sir Harry, begging him not to
move with infantry, or they would be cut to pieces, but to sally out
with 250 men of the Cape Mounted Rifles.
“This Sir Harry, in the daring, dashing way so characteristic of him,
gallantly did, wearing the forage cap and uniform of one of the Cape
Rifles, and by this timely incognito he rode twelve hazardous miles
through the desultory fire of the Kafirs on the way to King William’s
Town. At the Debe Nek, about halfway, a strong attempt was made to
intercept the Corps, but Sir Harry Smith and his escort vigorously
spurred through their opponents, and after a smart ride reached the
town, having eluded six bodies of Kafirs, who little suspected how
great a prize was then in their power.”[203]
[Illustration: EASTERN FRONTIER
of the COLONY of the
CAPE of GOOD HOPE
FROM ALGOA BAY TO THE GREAT KEI RIVER
_Opposite p. 620._]
On the day of his arrival in King William’s Town, 31st December, Sir
Harry issued a Government notice of the most vigorous kind. “He hopes
colonists will rise _en masse_ to destroy and exterminate these most
barbarous and treacherous savages, who for the moment are formidable.
Every post in British Kaffraria is necessarily maintained.”[204]
Meanwhile, on the news reaching Cape Town that the Governor was shut up
in Fort Cox, the Colonial Secretary, Mr. Montagu, himself a Waterloo
man, showed the greatest energy in raising troops and despatching them
to the frontier. He sent in all 3000 men, chiefly Hottentots. On the
arrival of the first levies (1600 men), Sir Harry wrote to him, “Your
exertions are incredible, and they will enable me to take the field.”
Accordingly, at the end of January he ordered Mackinnon to throw
supplies into Forts White and Cox. This was accomplished, but he could
do little at the moment beyond maintaining the military posts, and
meanwhile difficulties were accumulating upon him. The Dutch farmers
did not come forward as they had done in 1835, to assist in repelling
an invasion from the colony; Kreili, the Great Chief beyond the Kei,
was wavering; and, worse than all, by the beginning of February Sir
Harry learnt that the Hottentots of the Kat River Settlement, people
nominally Christians, though of late suspected of disaffection, had one
and all revolted and joined the Kafirs, their hereditary enemies.
On the 3rd February, in once more appealing to the inhabitants of the
colony to rally in their own defence, he said, “I regard this almost
general disaffection of the coloured classes within the Colony as of
far greater moment than the outbreak of the Kafirs.”
At this time the British troops at Sir Harry’s disposal amounted only
to 1700,[205] of whom 900 were employed in holding a dozen posts.
Accordingly he had only 800 “available to control 4000 Hottentot
auxiliaries of doubtful loyalty, and to meet the hordes of well-armed
athletic and intrepid barbarians in the field.”[206] Both Colonel (now
Major-General) Somerset and Colonel Mackinnon had obtained successes;
the rebel chief Hermanus had been killed in attacking Fort Beaufort on
7th January; yet the enemy was still powerful and in the occupation of
a mountainous country next to impenetrable.
Sir Harry was compelled to act on two bases, the one from King
William’s Town to the mouth of the Buffalo, so communicating by the
port of East London with the Western Province and with the sea; the
other from Fort Hare _viâ_ Fort Beaufort and Grahamstown to Port
Elizabeth, Fort Hare being connected with King William’s Town by the
garrisons of Fort White and Fort Cox. The troops operating on the
first line in British Kaffraria were under the command of Colonel
Mackinnon, and had their headquarters at King William’s Town under the
eye of the Commander-in-Chief. In April, after the arrival of the new
levies, they amounted to 4700 men, of whom 1000 were occupying a line
of seven posts. The troops on the second line were under the command
of Major-General Somerset, whose headquarters were at Fort Hare. They
amounted to 2900, of whom 900 were garrisoning six posts. The general
plan of the campaign was to confine the war to neutral territory, to
detain the Kafirs in Kaffraria, and eventually to drive them out of
their fastnesses in the Amatola Mountains. The Kafir revolt would in
this way, Sir Harry writes, have been crushed at once, but for the
hopes raised by the defection of the Hottentots. That defection had
indeed gone far. Although Somerset on the 23rd February had crushed
the Kat River rebellion by the capture of the rebels’ stronghold, Fort
Armstrong, only a fortnight later 335 men of the Cape Mounted Rifles,
including the very men who had so gallantly escorted the Governor from
Fort Cox, deserted from King William’s Town in a body. This was another
crushing blow. “My horror cannot be described,” Sir Harry wrote on
the 17th March. “I assure your Lordship that no event of my military
career ever caused me so much pain as the defection of so large a
portion of a corps to which I am as much attached as I am to that
wearing the green jacket of my own regiment.” This detachment of the
Rifles had been drawn principally from the Hottentots of the Kat River
Settlement and had been much excited by rumours of the punishment which
was to be meted out to the Kat River rebels.
Having felt it necessary to disarm nearly all the Riflemen who had not
deserted, Sir Harry now found himself practically without any mounted
force at all, and wrote to ask for 400 young Englishmen to be sent out
as recruits, with the promise of receiving ten acres of land after
ten years’ service. This request, however, was not granted. In order
to anticipate any attempt at rescuing the Kat River prisoners at Fort
Hare, Sir Harry moved out himself on March 19th, and by a masterly
movement defeated the enemy at the Keiskamma, spent the 20th at Fort
Hare, obtained another success on the Tab’ Indoda Range on the 21st,
and returning by Fort White with 1000 captured cattle, reached King
William’s Town on the 25th.
A Cape newspaper, politically opposed to him, wrote of Sir Harry’s
conduct in these few days—
“It is not a little gratifying to find the mingled fire and prudence
of the veteran commander as conspicuous now as in former days. We see
the value of such a leader more distinctly in comparing him with
other officers of good standing and abilities.”
And it quotes from the _Frontier Times_—
“Sir Harry Smith showed his usual energy, riding backwards and
forwards to where the different parties were engaged and cheering them
on. A new spirit has been infused among the troops and levies, and all
speak of the bravery and activity of his Excellency.”[207]
Fresh signs of disaffection in the Cape Corps made it necessary to
disarm still more men, and the Kafirs were so much emboldened that but
for the loyalty of the one chief Pato, who held the country between
King William’s Town and the sea, the Governor’s position would have
been barely defensible. He continued to send out patrols, which were
invariably successful. Mackinnon scoured the Poorts of the Buffalo
in the middle of April and at the end of the month penetrated the
Amatolas; and Captain Tylden, in command of the position of Whittlesea,
which was twelve times assaulted, saved the Colony for the time from
the enemy. But larger operations were out of the question. “Had the
Kat River Rebellion and the defection of the Cape Corps not presented
themselves, Sandilli’s reign would have been a transient one. I have
been obliged to steer a most cautious course, one contrary to my
natural desire in predatory warfare, but imperatively imposed on me
by the dictates of prudence and discretion, my force being composed
generally of a race excitable in the extreme.” So Sir Harry wrote
on the 5th April. Ten days later he again complains of the little
assistance given him by the farmers. “A few spirited farmers have
performed good service, but where are the men who so gallantly fought
with me in 1835—Van Wyks, Greylings, Nels, Rademeyers, Ryneveldts,
etc.? Once more, my advice to the frontier inhabitants is to rush to
the front.”
Early in May Sir Harry received reinforcements from home, consisting of
drafts for the regiments already under his command (11 officers and 296
men) and the 74th Regiment. This he sent to Fort Hare to Major-General
Somerset, ordering him at the same time to be prepared to concentrate
for a move into the great Kafir stronghold, the Amatolas. Two more
regiments were still to come, and Sir Harry believed that the force he
would then have would be ample. In acknowledging the reinforcements,
he wrote on 6th May, “I had most zealously clung to the desire of
civilizing these savages. As regards the Gaikas generally, my attempt
has been an awful failure, while I congratulate myself on having
maintained at peace the T’Slambie tribes, comprising the half nearly of
the population of British Kaffraria. I am deeply indebted to the chief
Pato.”
On the 10th May he was gratified by receiving the following letter from
the Duke of Wellington:—
“London, 8th March, 1851.
“My dear General,
“We heard on the day before yesterday of the renewal of your troubles
at the Cape.
“The 74th Regiment and all the drafts from Depôts that can be sent for
the Regiments at the Cape will be sent off as soon as possible.
“I have told the Government that I think that another Regiment ought
to be sent.
“I enclose the copy of a memorandum which I sent yesterday to Lord
Grey.[208]
“Not knowing the latest or the exact state of the insurrection, I
cannot say in what stations it would be necessary for you to carry on
your operations, or whether with more than one Corps.
“If with only one so much the better, but it will increase the
security, confidence, and tranquillity of the Colony if you should be
able to keep an efficient Corps in reserve in a second line.
“Wishing you every success,
“Believe me, ever yours most sincerely,
“(Signed) Wellington.
“Lieut.-General Sir Harry Smith, Bt., G.C.B.”
It must have been satisfactory to Sir Harry to feel that in
establishing his two lines of defence he had anticipated the advice of
his great master.
While Somerset made a successful patrol against the combined Kafirs
and Hottentots of the sources of the Kat River, and Mackinnon another
in the Amatolas, there were still no signs of the submission of the
enemy. Meanwhile news came of trouble with Moshesh in the Orange River
Sovereignty, and the prospect of a new war there, and this was followed
by a revolt of the Hottentots of the missionary station of Theopolis,
25 miles from Grahamstown. The period of six months for which the
Hottentot levies in the army had been enlisted was now expiring, and
there was no disposition among them to enlist again, and in this way
the force would be reduced to 1800 men. Nothing could be done till
further reinforcements arrived from England. “The almost general
rebellion among the eastern Hottentots,” wrote Sir Harry on the 17th
June, “paralyzes my movements in British Kaffraria and compels me to
hold a force ready for the protection of Grahamstown.” Owing to the
cutting off of the mails, his letters to his wife at Cape Town were now
written almost entirely in Spanish.
The following letter to his sister Mrs. Sargant shows the feeling
excited in him by Sir William Molesworth’s attack on him in the House
of Commons on April 10th, in which he was accused of burdening the
empire by the annexation of 105,000 square miles of new territory and
provoking his local troubles by high-handed and despotic government.
“King William’s Town, 18th June, 1851.
“_Waterloo._
“My dearest Alice,
“I wish I was half the active fellow now I was then, for I have
need of it, seeing I am Her Majesty’s ‘Despotic Bashaw’ from Cape
Point to Delagoa Bay to the east, and to the great newly discovered
lake to the north-west—without a legislature, and in the midst of a
war with cruel and treacherous and ungrateful savages and renegade
and revolted Hottentots. These Hottentots have been treated as the
most favoured people, enjoying all the rights, civil and religious,
of the inhabitants at large of the Colony—fed as a population when
starving,—yet have these ungrateful wretches in great numbers (not
all) revolted and joined their hereditary and oppressive enemy the
Kafir, who drove them from the Kye over the Fish River, and who have
destroyed them as a nation.
“I have had so much to do and some little anxiety of mind, although
I sleep like a dormouse, that I have not written lately to one so
dear to me, but Juana has. The war-making Kafirs are cowed by the
continued exertions among them of my numerous and vigorous patrols,
but they are in that state of doggedness they will neither come
in nor fight. By every communication I have open to me, I offer
peace to _the people_, but the chiefs must await my decision, their
conduct has been so treacherous, cunning, and deceitful. I have
succeeded in maintaining in peace and tranquillity nearly one-half of
the population of British Kaffraria, those fortunately next to the
sea, while the Gaika Kafirs, natives of the mountains adjoining the
Hottentot great location of the Kat Province, are all at war. This
shows my system cannot be oppressive, or I should have had no friendly
Kafirs, whereas the latter escort my waggons with supplies, slaughter
cattle, carry my mails, assist me in every way in their power, which
affords better argument in refutation of the Radical and garbled
untruths, though founded on facts, of Sir W. Molesworth. I will give
you an example [of one] among other accusations of my despotism. The
Kafir Hermanus, who by birth is a negro slave, was ever heretofore
with his people an enemy to the Kafir, because it was his interest to
be friendly to us. After the war of 1835-6, Sir B. D’Urban gave him
a grant of a beautiful tract of country within the Colony upon the
ever-supplying-water, the Blinkwater, stream. His title was disputed
by some of the colonists, and it was complained that _he_ paid no
quit-rent as they all did. It was just, and only just, that if he
was protected by the government, he should contribute, equally with
others, his quota for its maintenance. I therefore, as a part of a
general system, exacted a quit-rent, a mere trifle, which was the best
possible title and deed of occupation, yet does this throating Sir W.
M. bring forward this as an act of despotism. It is really ludicrous.
“But for this inexplicable Hottentot revolution, I would have put
down the Kafirs in six weeks. These Hottentots are the most favoured
race on earth, yet have a set of Radical London Society missionaries
been preaching to them like evil spirits that they were an oppressed
and ill-used race, until, encouraged by violent meetings all over the
Colony upon the convict question, they have met with arms in their
hands, arms given to them by us, for the purpose of joining the Kafirs
to drive the English over the Zwartkop River beyond Uitenhage.
“I have endeavoured to administer this government so as to allow the
all-powerful sun to shine forth its glory upon all its inhabitants,
whether black or white, equally, and I have no other object than the
welfare of the people generally. I have said, ‘Lay before me your
wants; they shall be considered and your wishes met if practicable.’
This was appreciated until the d—— convict question arose. The
emancipated blacks in Cape Town, the Hottentots in the Kat River, held
anti-convict meetings got up by white Radicals, who have thus induced
the coloured classes upon this frontier and in many other parts of the
Colony to believe that separate interests exist for white and black.
“The Kafir has been fostered by the most benevolent acts of kindness
by me as a Governor. My study has been to ameliorate their condition
from brutes to Christians, from savages to civilized men. They
progressed in three years beyond all belief until some white-faced
devils (the sable king often wears a white face) got in among them,
persuaded the chiefs my object was their extermination, and while the
_people_ clung with avidity to my protection from the former tyranny
they groaned under, the chiefs asserted their feudal authority, and
such is man in a wild state of nature, he cleaves to the hereditary
rule of oppressors of his forefathers—with tears in his eyes. I have
seen many weep when they came to say to me farewell; ‘Our country will
be lost.’ Let Sir W. M. and his myrmidons deny this; he cannot, but he
can assert that just measures are foul, despotic, and arbitrary acts.
“Juana is in better spirits now since the reinforcements have arrived,
I hope. Since I have received the dear Duke’s kind letter, Juana
regards me as supported by old friends and present master.[209] The
latter gentleman and I understand each other. I will be _censured_
by no man, but I will endeavour to obey where I can. He affronted me
by finding fault with an ‘abortive attempt to reform the Legislative
Council,’ which made my blood boil, although my remonstrance was
as mild as milk. I think the recent attempt he and his colleagues
have made to form a government has been fully as _abortive_ as mine,
and they have discovered the impossibility of making legislators
of men who will not undertake office. Since the outbreak all his
communications have been most complimentary.
“Your brother
“Harry.
“P.S.—I have been urged by many friends to send home some one to
support the cause of my government. I won’t. It is a weak line of
conduct to appeal to friendship when conduct is in intention free from
imputation of evil. Let Miss Coutts peruse this if she can. You had
better copy it in your legible hand, for the enormous quantity I write
has as much impaired my autograph as hard roads the fore-legs of a
trotting horse, if England still produces one. That she does asses, I
know.”
One of Sir Harry’s nephews, writing home on the 21st, says—
“My uncle’s health, thank God, considering all things, is far from
bad, but he is obliged to be very careful, and cannot stand exposure
to damp or cold. The Hottentots are mostly in the colony in small
bands, plundering the poor defenceless farmers; constant outrages are
committed by these rascals.... Sir Harry confidently expects that two
or three regiments will be speedily sent out, and sincerely do I hope
they may, for to end the war with his present force is impossible.”
On the last four days of June a combined movement to clear the
Amatolas which had long been preparing was at last accomplished, the
1st Division under the command of Somerset co-operating with the 2nd
under Michel (Colonel Mackinnon being ill), assisted by Tylden with
300 men from Whittlesea. The operations were conducted by four columns
converging to a centre. They were completely successful, but Sir Harry
saw no signs that they had hastened the end of the war, and warned
the inhabitants of the colony that the beaten Kafirs were likely to
go about in small marauding parties as “wolves”—an anticipation too
sadly realized by the rush which was now made into the Colony, and the
terrible depredations which accompanied it.
The trial of the Kat River rebels resulted in 47 of them being
sentenced to death—a sentence which Sir Harry commuted to penal
servitude for life; so bringing on himself in some quarters the charge
of excessive leniency. Chase, who considers the commutation a “grave
mistake,” excuses it on the ground that Sir Harry “pitied the poor
creatures, knowing that they had been deluded into the belief that they
are taught by the precept of the Bible to fight for independence with
the sword of Gideon.”[210] It is better to accept the explanation given
by Sir Harry himself in his dispatch of the 7th April, 1852.
“Surrounded as I and Major-General Somerset were by these people drawn
from the eastern and western districts, one false step or untimely
exercise of power and martial law would have plunged the whole into
the chaos of revolution. Her Majesty’s troops must have abandoned
their advanced positions and fallen back on Grahamstown, and the
T’Slambie tribes would have risen as well as every curly-headed black
from Cape Town to Natal.”[211]
During July and August bands of the enemy filled the country between
Fort Beaufort and the Fish River, penetrating later into Lower Albany
itself, and burning and marauding wherever they appeared. It was
natural that the colonists should appeal to the Commander-in-Chief
to assist them. Feeling, however, that if he fell back from King
William’s Town, his retreat would be the signal for tribes on the east,
hitherto passive, to join the Gaikas, he expressed his wish to continue
operations in the Amatolas, and ordered Somerset to establish posts of
burghers, if they would turn out, at every eligible point. Somerset
replied that the burghers could not now withstand the attacks, and he
had established a camp at Haddon on the Koonap; and a month later Sir
Harry sent Colonel Eyre with the 73rd Regiment from King William’s Town
to Bathurst to protect Grahamstown and Lower Albany.
And so the war went on, the Commander ever sending out fresh patrols
to harass the foe in his fastnesses,—on the 8th August he says that
the 73rd regiment has now marched 2838 miles since the outbreak of
hostilities,—maintaining every single post, yet still, for want of an
adequate force, unable to effect any decisive action. Meanwhile there
were fresh defections among the Hottentots in the Cape Corps, and news
came from Warden in the Orange River Sovereignty that many of the Boers
there would not assist him against Moshesh, and their fellow-countrymen
over the Vaal were disposed to back them in their hostility to the
British Government. He was bidden to act only on the defensive till
troops could be sent to him.
In August the 2nd (Queen’s) Regiment arrived from England, and soon
after part of the 12th Regt. from the Mauritius. But there were a mass
of hostile Kafirs and Hottentots in the Colony estimated at more than
6000, one body being in the Fish River Bush 30 miles to the north-east
of Grahamstown, the other under Macomo in the Waterkloof 50 miles to
the north-west, and in a patrol made by Colonel Mackinnon in the Fish
River Bush on the 8th September, Captain Oldham and 25 men were killed
and 41 wounded, and the bush was re-occupied by the Kafirs immediately.
Meanwhile Somerset had failed in expelling Macomo, and Kreili and Fakoo
seemed on the brink of openly throwing in their lot with Sandilli.
Under these circumstances, although now reinforced by the 60th Rifles
and the 12th Lancers, Sir Harry asks on the 15th October for 400
English recruits for the Cape Corps and two additional regiments of
infantry. Meanwhile there were fresh operations of the most arduous
kind in the Waterkloof, and Somerset at the end of October succeeded in
dislodging Macomo from his fastness. In consequence of that success,
Sir Harry was able to write on the 1st November that he was now able
to undertake tasks of a more extensive character, and proposed, after
sweeping the Amatolas and driving the enemy from the Fish River Bush,
if he concentrated there, to march across the Kei with three columns to
invade Kreili, whose country was the great refuge of the beaten Gaikas,
after which it might be necessary to send a force over the Orange River
against Moshesh.
On November 12th, having received a despatch from Lord Grey suggesting
that, failing the support of the Boers in the Orange River Sovereignty,
the territory should be relinquished, Sir Harry forwarded it to his
Assistant-Commissioners, Major Hogg and Mr. Owen, with a strong
expression of his own views of such a proposal.
“If Her Majesty’s sovereignty over this territory were now rescinded,
the step would be regarded by every man of colour in South Africa as
an unprecedented and unlooked-for victory to his race, and be the
signal of revolt or continued resistance to British authority from
Cape Town to the territory of Panda, and thence to the Great Lake. No
measure during my administration of this Government has caused me so
much consideration as that relating to the affairs of the Sovereignty.
Property there, even during the late disturbances, has increased in
value, and although the funds are not now flourishing, I am confident
that locally they will speedily improve to a great extent. I am
equally confident that if any change were made in the present state of
things in the theoretical hope of gaining over a discontented party
by yielding to their demands, such a precedence would evince weakness
on our part, fraught with every evil, and perpetuate the belief that
persevering resistance to Her Majesty’s authority would ultimately
ensure success. It would, at the same time, be not only disastrous to
the parties now dissatisfied, but would sacrifice to the vengeance of
the disaffected those who have remained loyal and faithful.”
In this Sir Harry saw more clearly than most of his contemporaries.
When, contrary to the strong opinion of the Colony,[212] the
Sovereignty was abandoned in 1854, and a Republic hostile to England
was allowed to take its place, only one man, the present Lord Norton,
opposed the change in the House of Commons, and he on very narrow
grounds, and Sir Harry Smith’s successor in the Governorship of the
Cape wrote in blind satisfaction, “The foolish Sovereignty farce is at
length over, and we have done with it.”[213]
In November, in the course of Somerset’s continued operations to clear
the Waterkloof, Lieut.-Col. Fordyce of the 74th and four other officers
fell by an ambuscade, an incident the more unfortunate as the English
public, unable to realize the enormous difficulties of the situation,
was already much excited by the slow progress made in the war. Those
difficulties were enumerated by Sir Harry Smith on 18th Dec. in reply
to a querulous dispatch of Lord Grey. He reminded him that he had had
to carry on a desultory war over an extent of country twice the size
of Great Britain and Ireland, overrun by a most enterprising horde of
savages, and to maintain twelve forts. Had one retrograde step been
made, the _whole_ population of British Kaffraria would have been in a
blaze. What soldiers could do, his had done.
“So long as the insurgents held together and acted in large bodies,
they were defeated on forty-five different occasions between
the 24th Dec. and 21st Oct.... I have maintained throughout my
positions and forts—no convoy has been cut off, and no rencontre,
however sanguinary, has been unattended with success.” Now that the
reinforcements have arrived, they “will rescue the Colony from its
misery ... and relieve the Governor of the Cape from difficulties,
obstacles, opposition, and rebellion, such as it has been the fortune
of few men to encounter.”
The worst was already past. In the middle of January Sir Harry reports
that the operations beyond the Kei have met with signal success,
that 30,000 head of cattle have been captured, 7000 Fingoes rescued
from thraldom, and that a meeting of all the Gaika chiefs and their
councillors has deputed emissaries to sue for peace, and that he has
insisted on an unconditional surrender. At the same time he has seven
columns of troops ready to move, if his terms are not agreed to.
Accordingly, when he received on 5th February a rather sarcastic
dispatch from Lord Grey written on the 15th December, he was in a good
position to reply to it. Lord Grey wrote—
“It is some relief ... to find that you are so highly satisfied with
the conduct of the officers and men under your orders, and that you
regard the operations under Major-General Somerset on the 14th and
16th October as having been attended with important success. I confess
that from that officer’s own report, ... that is not the light in
which I should have regarded these affairs. The very serious amount of
our losses, and the fact that at the conclusion of the operations of
the last day to which your intelligence reaches, it was the rear, and
not the van, of the British force which was engaged with the enemy,
and that the latter must therefore have been the assailants, would
appear to me scarcely to justify the tone of satisfaction with which
you relate these occurrences.”
In reply to this piece of civilian criticism, Sir Harry writes—
“Those, my Lord, who have witnessed military operations, and are best
acquainted with their varying character, success attending them in
one part of the field, while in others partial bodies may be held in
check, will not consider the affair of a rearguard as the criterion
by which to judge of their general result. Neither in ancient nor
in modern war has a rencontre of the kind been so regarded. And the
peculiarity of the present contest must be borne in mind; it must
be remembered that this Kafir warfare is of the most completely
guerrilla and desultory nature, in which neither front, flank, nor
rear is acknowledged, and where the disciplined few have to contend
with the undisciplined but most daring and intrepid many, in the midst
of the holds and fastnesses of the latter.... The country in which
the operations were carried on is far more difficult to ascend and
penetrate than even the Amatolas; hence the gallant and enterprising
exertions of the troops became the more conspicuous, and called
forth that expression of my satisfaction dictated by experience in
war, which enables a Commander to estimate justly the success he has
obtained, and to commend as it deserves the conduct of his officers
and soldiers.
“In my dispatch of the 19th November I have reported the ultimate
success of Major-General Somerset’s operations. Although the loss
of Lieut.-Col. Fordyce and of the other officers who unfortunately
fell by an ambuscade of not more ... than 20 rebels, was deeply to
be regretted, the success which I anticipated and have reported, but
which your Lordship does not regard in the same light, founding your
opinion on the affair of a rearguard, enabled me immediately to so
organize the troops as effectually to watch and guard the frontier
line to prevent inroads, and at the same time to invade the territory
of the paramount chief, Kreili. The uninterrupted successes of the
troops beyond the Kei ... established their superiority far and near.
Meanwhile I was enabled to collect a depôt of provisions for 1000
infantry and 500 horse at Bloemfontein, in case necessity should arise
for a movement in that direction.... Thus, my Lord, viewing matters as
a whole, you will, I think, consider me borne out by general results
in having expressed my satisfaction at the conduct of the officers
and troops, whose exertions and success I foresaw would lead to the
result which has been attained, a general entreaty for peace by the
enemy beyond the Kei, as well as by the rebels of British Kaffraria.”
Peace was in prospect, but it was not yet attained, and after a week’s
suspension of hostilities, seven columns were again operating in the
Amatolas. Little or no resistance was met with. A fresh operation in
the Waterkloof was now determined on. Accompanying the troops himself,
Sir Harry established his headquarters on 5th March at Fort Beaufort,
and on the 9th at Blinkwater Post. On the 11th Eyre, after enormous
difficulties in a precipitous country, captured “Macomo’s Den”—a
success of such magical effect that resistance seemed to vanish after
it.
On the 17th March Sir Harry pronounced that the difficult and till then
well-maintained positions of the enemy, the Waterkloof, Blinkwater, and
Fuller’s Hoek, were completely cleared, and he was at once moving with
Michel’s and Eyre’s columns with fifteen days’ provisions to dislodge
Tyalie and penetrate into the heart of the Amatolas, while Somerset
pursued the retreating enemy, and the Tambookies were assailed from
Whittlesea. “Every part of the rebel enemy’s country will then be
assailed.”
But in the same dispatch in which he announced that the enemy was being
at last driven to bay, he had to acknowledge the receipt of Lord Grey’s
dispatch of 14th January, informing him that for a want of “energy and
judgment” in conducting the war he was recalled, and that General the
Hon. George Cathcart would shortly arrive in South Africa to supersede
him. It is needless to picture the bitter mortification of the veteran
Commander, who, after gallantly facing unexampled difficulties,
saw the sweets of victory snatched from his grasp and the military
qualities which had brought him fame condemned by a civilian of half
his years. Lord Grey’s dispatch—universally condemned in England and in
the Colony[214]—and Harry Smith’s vindication may be read in full in
Appendix V. to this volume, their length precluding them from finding a
place here.
It was a consolation to the recalled General to learn that the Duke
of Wellington, speaking in the House of Lords on 5th February, had
entirely repudiated Lord Grey’s censure.
“I wish to express my sense of the services of General Sir Harry
Smith, now in the command of the troops in the Colony of the Cape of
Good Hope. Sir Harry Smith is an officer who, from the high reputation
which he has already attained in the service, does not require any
commendation from me. But having filled a high command in several
important military operations carried on under his direction, and
having been recalled by Her Majesty’s Government, it is but just to
him to say that I, who am his commanding officer, though at a great
distance, entirely approve of all his operations—of all the orders
he has given to the troops, and of all the arrangements he made for
their success. I approve entirely of the conduct of the troops in all
their operations. I am fully sensible of the difficulties under which
they laboured, and of the gallantry with which they overcame all those
difficulties, and of the great success which attended their exertions.
(Cheers.) My firm belief is that everything has been done by the
commanding General, by the forces, and by his officers, in order to
carry into execution the instructions of Her Majesty’s Government....
I am proud to say that I have observed no serious error in the conduct
of these late operations.... The only fault I find with Sir Harry
Smith is” [that after storming a native fastness he did not destroy it
by opening roads into it for the movement of regular troops with the
utmost rapidity].
The Duke, however, acknowledged that to do what he suggested was not
the work of a moment.[215]
But the bitterness of his recall did not cool the energy with which
Sir Harry maintained the war against the flagging enemy. The Amatolas
were scoured again, and the satisfactory report brought in by
Colonel Michel: “The Gaika tribes generally have migrated from these
strongholds. Two companies may traverse with safety where heretofore
a large column was required. I deem the war in this quarter virtually
concluded.” With such news the Governor returned to King William’s Town
on 26th March. On 7th April he wrote his last dispatch as Governor and
Commander-in-Chief. He was able to say—
“I transfer the civil government without a single particle of
business in arrear, and with a treasury without a debt, while all the
civil officers have worked under me with energy and zeal. The war
impending over the Orange River territory has been averted, while had
its prosecution become imperative, I had collected an ample depôt
of commissariat supplies at Bloemfontein. Amicable relationship
has been established with the Transvaal emigrant Boers.[216] The
turbulent Boers within the Sovereignty, when convicted of overt acts
of disloyalty, have had heavy pecuniary fines inflicted on them, many
of which to the amount of £1075 have already been promptly paid,
which I have caused to be placed in the imperial chest and to its
credit. Property rises considerably in value, and the revenue of the
Sovereignty exceeds its expenditure.
“The flourishing condition of Natal is deeply indebted to the able
and judicious government of Mr. Pine, who, in a letter to me of the
20th March, thus expresses himself: ‘The only service I have really
rendered your Excellency was the sending the contingent into the
Sovereignty; and the greater part of any merit there may be attached
to that service belongs fairly to you. It is an easy thing for a
subordinate officer to do his duty when he feels that he has a chief
above him, who, provided he acts honestly and straightforwardly will
support him whether he succeeds or fails. Such a chief I have had in
your Excellency.’
“I relinquish the command of the troops ... at a period when,
according to the reports I have received, ... the mass of the Gaikas
have been expelled from the Amatolas—when the Kafirs, Cis- as well
as Trans-Keian, have repeatedly sued for peace, and when the war is
virtually terminated.”[217]
On the same day Sir Harry issued the following farewell to his troops,
dated “Headquarters, King William’s Town”:—
“His Excellency Lieut.-General the Hon. George Cathcart having been
appointed by the Queen to relieve me, I this day relinquish the
command.
“Brother officers and soldiers! Nothing is more painful than to bid
farewell to old and faithful friends. I have served my Queen and
country many years; and attached as I have ever been to gallant
soldiers, none were ever more endeared to me than those serving in
the arduous campaign of 1851-2 in South Africa. The unceasing labours,
the night-marches, the burning sun, the torrents of rain have been
encountered with a cheerfulness as conspicuous as the intrepidity
with which you have met the enemy in so many enterprising fights and
skirmishes in his own mountain fastnesses and strongholds, and from
which you have ever driven him victoriously.
“I leave you, my comrades, in the fervent hope of laying before your
Queen, your country, and His Grace the Duke of Wellington these
services as they deserve, which reflect so much honour upon you.
“Farewell, my comrades! your honour and interests will be ever more
dear to me than my own.
“H. G. Smith.”
In a reply (also dated “7th April”) to an address from the inhabitants
of King William’s Town, in which they assured him, “We could have well
wished that Her Majesty’s Government had thought fit to have left the
final settlement of this war in the hands of your Excellency,” Sir
Harry chivalrously put in a plea for those who had inflicted upon him
so bitter a humiliation. “You on the spot must have observed how slow
the progress of the war occasionally appeared. It may therefore be
readily conceived how much Her Majesty’s Government must have been
disappointed, who could alone judge of events by reports, and had not
the various circumstances before them which were apparent to you.”
General Cathcart reached King William’s Town late on the 9th April,
having taken the oaths as Governor at Cape Town on 31st March. Sir
Harry received him on the 10th with the same generosity with which in
1836 he had received Capt. Stockenstrom under similar circumstances,
and, as General Cathcart writes,[218] devoted the whole of the day “to
the purpose of giving me every insight into the affairs of the colony
generally, and more particularly of the eastern frontier.”
Next morning at 3, Sir Harry left King William’s Town with his staff.
In the darkness of night the inhabitants and troops turned out
voluntarily, cheered him enthusiastically, and in considerable numbers
escorted him to Fort Murray. Here, though it was still dark, he was
met by a body of Kafirs under Pato, who greeted him with shouts of
“Inkosi Inkulu!” and, refusing all other escort, he committed himself
to their hands. He was much affected, we are told, at parting with his
officers, and his voice was scarcely audible when he uttered his last
words, “Gentlemen, take care of the soldiers. God bless you!” He then
continued his journey with the friendly Kafirs, who were joined on the
way by other parties of Kafirs, horse and foot. It was a strange and
romantic spectacle.[219]
A few days later, on board the _Styx_ he reached Cape Town. He was
received by an immense concourse, cheering enthusiastically, and
carried to his carriage under a triumphal arch. Though extremely
unwell, he bore himself with his usual energy, and from his carriage
rose and briefly thanked the multitude, adding emphatically, “I have
done my duty to the Cape of Good Hope.” A public dinner was offered
him, but in his situation he felt it right to decline it, upon which
the conveners opened a subscription for a “more lasting tribute of
respect and esteem.” It took the form of a gift of plate.
During his three days’ stay at Cape Town, addresses were presented to
him by the inhabitants, by the tradesmen and mechanics, and by the
inhabitants of Rondebosch, where he had resided both as Colonel Smith
and as Governor. In his reply to the first, he said—
“In the service of this colony I have spent some of the best years of
my life, and, excepting those during which I have been Governor, some
of the happiest. At such a moment as this, nothing can be remembered
by me, and I am equally certain nothing can be remembered by the
citizens of Cape Town and the colonists at large, excepting what would
serve to keep alive old kindness and good feeling, and to bury all
past differences and temporary estrangements in oblivion.”
To the tradesmen and mechanics, he said, “I am myself a working man.
Whatever reputation I may have at any time possessed, I gained simply
and solely by being a working man who put his heart into his work.”
To the inhabitants of Rondebosch, after referring to the difficulties
he had had to contend with and the failure of his efforts for the good
of the Kafirs, he added, “Let us all hope that the distinguished
officer who has succeeded me in the government will be able to settle
permanently the elements which are already subsiding into peace,
and let us all be ready to aid him, heart and hand, in his arduous
undertaking.” Those words were the expression of a noble nature
incapable of jealousy.
On Saturday, 17th April, at 2 o’clock, Sir Harry and Lady Smith
embarked on H.M.S. _Gladiator_. The multitude of people that turned out
to bid them good-bye exceeded anything ever seen in the Colony before;
triumphal arches had been erected, the horses were taken out of the
carriage, and cheer after cheer arose, to which Sir Harry, in spite of
illness, responded with almost juvenile animation, while Lady Smith sat
by his side in tears.[220]
Cape Town honoured itself in honouring the veteran who, whatever his
faults of judgment, had served the Colony single-heartedly to the
utmost of his strength, who by his military genius and promptitude in
action had conferred upon it in the past enormous benefits, and whose
warmth of heart and loyalty of character had endeared him to all who
had known him.
As a Governor he had not been indeed beyond criticism. In his relations
with Hintza in 1835 he had shown an excessive confidence in the
protestations of a savage, and he had seen that confidence abused.
The same fault committed in the closing months of 1850 had preceded
events still more deplorable. In questions of imperial policy his
views were large and far-sighted. In regard to his civil government,
one may say that he had to face a series of situations which might
well have puzzled the most practised statesman. Standing alone with
an unpopular Colonial Secretary and a Legislative Council utterly
discredited, he had the task of smoothing the way for the introduction
of representative government, unaided by the support of the people
at large, who on their part, when a grievance presented itself,
being without any constitutional means of enforcing their views,
were driven to make a sort of civil war on their own executive. Sir
Harry was himself a believer in the advantages of popular government,
but he was also a soldier who felt himself bound to render implicit
obedience to his superior officer. If in this situation he temporarily
lost popularity and encountered obloquy and misrepresentation of the
grossest kind, it can only be set to his credit. As to his management
of the Kafir War, for which he was recalled, one may safely leave his
reputation in the hands of the Duke of Wellington.
The general judgment of the Colony upon him is perhaps expressed by
Chase, who calls him “the eagle-eyed and ubiquitous, a better general
than statesman,” and adds—
“All men sympathized with the Governor on his recall. With some
share of bluster (in the best acceptation of that term), he was in
private life most warm-hearted, generous, and amiable, unforgetful
of services done to him when plain Colonel Smith. Those who had the
honour of being admitted to his confidence, and therefore best knew
him, can bear testimony to his ardent desire to benefit the Colony and
to his personal regard for its inhabitants. It is true, when under
excitement, he employed somewhat strong expletives, which, like sheet
lightning, are terrifying yet harmless; but the writer can add from
personal and intimate knowledge that, notwithstanding this blemish, he
was, perhaps strange to say, a devout and religious man.”[221]
Besides Whittlesea and Aliwal North, two towns in South Africa keep
alive the memory of Sir Harry Smith’s administration—Harrismith, over
the Orange River, founded early in 1849, and Ladysmith, in Natal,
founded in 1851. I may add that Sir Harry’s autobiography now sees the
light, only on account of the reawakening of interest in him and in his
wife during those long weeks of the beginning of 1900 in which the fate
of Ladysmith held the whole British race in suspense.