Constitution of the Union of South Africa

others as far as the Zoutpansberg mountains in the north-east, while another large contingent crossed the Drakenberg into Natal. All went off "in the full assurance," as Retief wrote, "that the English Government will allow us to govern ourselves without its interference"; but this was just what that Government was not prepared to admit. Under the law as it then stood a man once a British subject could not divest himself of that status. But in practice the parties that settled in the Free State and the distant Transvaal were left to themselves.

Annexation of Natal.

It was otherwise with those who entered Natal. Piet Retief was the leader of the band who crossed the Drakenberg into that country, where he found Dingaan, the Zulu chief who had succeeded Chaka, in posses sion of most of the country but with still a few English traders and an English magistrate established at Port Natal. From Dingaan he obtained a concession of most of Natal, but when he went in friendly guise to his kraal to restore some stolen cattle, he and his unarmed companions were set upon and mur dered (Feb. 1838). Dingaan then proceeded to wipe out one of the Boer laagers at Weenen; but finally, after some confused fighting, in which the English from the port helped the Boers, Pretorius, with reinforcements from the Free State, crushed Dingaan at the Blood river in December, a victory still celebrated throughout South Africa as Dingaan's Day. Thereupon a Boer republic was set up at Pietermaritzburg in Natal, which for a time held a hegemony over the republics established at Winburg in the Free State and Potchefstroom beyond the Vaal. It looked as if the hope of Retief, founder of the Natal republic, that he would be undisturbed by the English was to be fulfilled. But though the English Government showed no inclination to pursue its former subjects beyond the Orange and Vaal rivers, the case was altered when the emigrants seized the coast land and port, where British subjects had already settled; all the more when the new republic began to stir up the hornets' nest of native troubles both in Zululand and on the north-eastern border of the Cape. At length, after considerable vacillation in Downing street, English troops were sent in 1842 to garrison Port Natal. Here

they were hard pressed by the Boers and would have been forced to yield, had it not been for the famous ride of Dick King to Grahamstown, whereby reinforcements were brought up just in time to save the garrison. Thereupon, in spite of another counter order from Downing street, the governor, Napier, obtained the sub mission of the Boers, and three years later, in 1845, Natal was annexed as a British possession, while most of the Boers trekked back over the Drakenberg to the republic over the border.

The High Commissioner.

In 1846 the Imperial Government was constrained to recognize its responsibility for events outside the actual colonial limits by instituting the office of high commis sioner, whose duty it became to deal with all British interests, not purely colonial, throughout South Africa. Normally this office was combined with that of governor of the Cape.

The chief reason for the annexation of Natal, apart from the fear of an important harbour like Durban falling into possibly unfriendly hands, was that the Boer republic was at that time not strong enough to keep the peace among the swarming hosts of Bantus with which they were surrounded. A similar reason led, in spite of Downing street's reluctance, to claims on the allegiance of the other republics north of the Orange and Vaal rivers. The only serious adversaries met at first by those who crossed the Vaal were the Matabele bands under Umsilikazi : but these bands were defeated by Potgieter in 1836 and later by the same leader on the Marico river in the following year, whereupon they fled further north and settled down in Matabeleland. Between the Orange and the Vaal the two chief native tribes were the Griquas immediately north of the Orange river and the Basutos further east. The Griquas were formidable chiefly because they were accustomed to the use of European arms and were also specially under the protection of the missionaries who had long been working among them. Both the Griquas and the Basutos com plained to the high commissioner of their difficulties with the Boers, who were accused of invading their preserves. The governor and high commissioner at that date was Sir Harry Smith (see