knows his inner mind! He represents the Queen and England ! Lord Carnarvon had chosen him, as the most distinguished man he could find, to convey a personal message to the people of South Africa! And this is the action of which Lord Carnarvon afterwards specifically approved in his despatch of June 26, 1876,' in answer to the complaint of the Cape Ministry as to Mr. Froude's action! Was not this the man who had publicly censured the High Commissioner for maintaining, as he had done, British interests against the two Republics ? Was this Lord Carnarvon's real view ? and if it was not, why was it said ? Has any Secretary of State repudiated these views ?

From Worcester he made a sort of triumphal procession throughout the districts of the west, the managers and companions of his tour being the bitterest political opponents of the Ministry. Mr. Froude was accompanied on his tour in the west by the editor of the Volksblad,' who was also proprietor of the ‘Standard and Mail,' the two Cape papers which had most strenuously advocated the cause of the Transvaal against the Imperial officers. At Worcester Mr. Froude sat at the right of the Chairman, and Mr. Charles Barry, who figured conspicuously at the Cape Town demonstration, sat at his left. At Swellendam the gentleman put in the most prominent position in getting up the local demonstration was the chairman at the Cape Town dinner.

He tells us himself that it was intimated to him that the corporations of the different towns desired to give him a public reception :

I made it a condition on going into the western province at all that they should do nothing of the kind. The conference having been rejected, the peculiarity of my position made me particularly desirous to escape notoriety, the promise which I required was given, but it was not observed, perhaps it could not be observed. The feelings of the people had been excited by your Lordship's speech in the House of Lords, and by the passages in the despatch which referred to Griqualand, and they could not be repressed. Remote settlers who had never before appeared to take an interest in politics were stirred into violent exertion. Deputations waited upon me wherever I went with words of welcome; groups of farmers, with their clergyman at their head, waited at cross-roads to speak to me, and hear me speak to them. I was followed into the towns by strings of carts and carriages half a mile long. The same scenes repeated themselves at Stellenbosch and the Paarl, at Malmesbury and Wellington, at Worcester, at Swellendam, at Riversdale and Mossel Bay.

I was entertained at dinners, and I was compelled to speak. Everywhere I inquired the cause of so much excitement; everywhere I received the same answer, that for the first time since 1806 an English minister had shown a disposition to do justice to the Dutch.

He thus played what we may term the nationality card.' The patriotic Afrikander was enlisted to his support. Lord Carnarvon’s great and only object, according to this chapter of the agitation, was to do justice to the Dutch and their friends.

When Mr. Froude appeared among the colonists of Dutch descent as their particular advocate and friend and the admirer of their compatriots across the Vaal, it was natural and gratifying that he should have been welcomed with the most sympathetic acclaim : but it was hardly proper, to say the least, that he should have acted so

, conspicuous a rôle of partisan display in his capacity as a special Commissioner from her Majesty's Government, just at the very time when Sir Henry Barkly, her Majesty's High Commissioner, was en route to consult with the Lieutenant-Governor of Griqualand West on the difficulties which had arisen in regard to that territory. Thus we find Mr. Froude on the one side, as the expositor of the Queen's opinion, 'stumping' and agitating the country, and on the other hand we find her Majesty's constitutional authorities (Sir Henry Barkly, Mr. Southey, Mr. Molteno and others)

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engaged in an entirely opposite spirit and direction. And further, while Mr. Froude was putting forward this sentimental union of South Africa, the two Republics were giving unmistakable signs that they were as much opposed to Confederation now as were the legislature and Government of the Cape Colony.

The next journey was to Natal, where we have another example of his extraordinary inconsistency. At a banquet given to him there (banquets were offered to him everywhere), he said : ' Cape Colony has obtained self-government, and, so far as the Cape interests are concerned, the experiment is working satisfactorily.' In various other speeches, as we have seen, he referred to the fact of self-government having increased the loyalty and good feeling between the mother country and the colonies; yet he felt himself able to say with regard to Sir Garnet Wolseley, who was about to leave Natal: 'I believe that this short period of his government will be the dawn of the brightest day which has yet risen in Natal.' It will be remembered that Sir Garnet Wolseley, by his champagne and sherry policy,' had just succeeded in effecting such a revolution in the constitution of Natal as had never been attempted in any British colony since the days preceding the revolt of the American colonies, unless it were in Jamaica! He further declared here that the grand object of the Conference was the advancement and prosperity of the republican states and Natal, which by railways constructed under Imperial patronage would centre their trade upon Durban, and thereby enrich the port at which he spoke. He informed his audience that when Lord Carnarvon gave his instructions to hold a conference at Maritzburg on the refusal of the Cape to join, he was not fully aware of the unanimity with which he had been supported by the Cape Colony.

I cannot proceed, in fairness to them, without a last appeal to the Cape Government; both provinces have spoken out so clearly and so nobly that I should be ungrateful if I did not remember it. A Northern Union, such as I have described, could not fail to be prejudicial to Port Elizabeth. I go back, therefore, for a last

, answer; if I am refused as before, I shall then return hither as soon as possible, and it shall go on without further delay.

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This is the man who said, 'I am nothing but myself while I remain here,' while he actually takes upon himself to suspend the definite instructions of Lord Carnarvon ! He now returned to the Cape Colony for this further appeal, accompanying Sir Garnet Wolseley as far as Port Elizabeth.

The abortive threat to leave the Cape out of a Federation, which had been made in Lord Carnarvon's despatch of the 15th of July, Mr. Froude had taken the opportunity of reenforcing in a letter written from Maritzburg to Mr. Molteno.

August 20. MY DEAR MR. MOLTENO,—You will by this time have seen Lord Carnarvon's despatch of the 15th of July. He directs, as I anticipated, the assemblage of the conference at Maritzburg. After the expression of so decided an opinion from so many parts of the Cape Colony, that if a conference meets the Colony should not be unrepresented, I shall take on myself the responsibility of suspending further action till I have seen you again. You were not encouraging when we had our last conversation, and I left you ‘grieving,' like Ephesians, that I might see your face no more.' The interests at stake, however, are so serious, and the consequences to the Cape Colony of a possible formation of a northern confederation, with Natal and Delagoa Bay for ports, and railways from both of these penetrating the Free States, would be so inevi- . tably injurious that I have determined to make one more effort, and I shall return to Cape Town with Sir Garnet Wolseley.

Faithfully yours,

J. A. FROUDE. "This was a mere threat, and of course never carried out. The Standard ridiculed the idea of the Eastern Federation being called into existence to ruin the Cape Colony. It was ludicrous to suppose that he could frighten the Cape by a proposal to federate the Free States, Natal, and Griqualand West, and to build railways with Imperial guarantees, so as to ruin the trade of England's principal colony in South Africa, the Cape Colony, and it was incredible that the British Government would assist in forcing the trade of internal South Africa through Delagoa Bay and even Durban to punish the Cape.

This threat was powerless to affect Mr. Molteno's firm resolution. Upon finding that it was regarded by Mr. Molteno as mere brutum fulmen, Mr. Froude and his wirepullers now conceived that they had sufficiently roused the country, and that it would be possible to secure a hostile vote in Parliament which would effectively remove the obstruction caused by Mr. Molteno's hostility by removing him from power. Up to that period Mr. Froude had not himself directly attacked Mr. Molteno, his Ministry or Parliament; he had allowed other speakers at his meetings to do so, and his own acts had been confined to condemning Imperial officers, from the High Commissioner downwards. By implication only had he censured the local authorities. He now threw off all reserve, and mistaking the noisy agitation raised by a few wirepullers for the voice of the country, assailed all who opposed his policy in unmeasured terms. It was arranged that meetings should now be held, which would urge the summoning of a special session of Parliament to deal with the question and dispose of Mr. Molteno.

When party feeling has been running high within a few years it is always easy to revive an agitation. The basis upon which an agitation could best be raised against the Ministry in the east was the Separation question, which in this part of the Colony was the cry to enlist supporters. The Governor and Mr. Molteno had themselves told Mr. Froude this on his arrival, and he had then said nothing was further from Lord Carnarvon's wishes, and that he had no intention of encouraging or permitting such a policy. This statement of Mr. Froude had been referred to by Mr. Sprigg in a speech which he had made at East London supporting the action of the Ministry and of Parliament. It would have been fatal to Mr. Froude's present purpose to have this statement of his circulated, for it would at once kill the separation idea. Mr. Froude therefore wrote to the papers,