CHAPTER XXVI. 

 ANNEXATION OF THE TRANSVAAL. 



About the time that Sir Theophilus Shepstone 

 came to Pretoria, a very prominent member of the 

 Natal Legislature wrote to me privately that, al- 

 though Shepstone was coming to Pretoria, avowedly 

 to see how he could assist in adjusting existing 

 difficulties, he actually had powers to annex the 

 Transvaal, and he thought he would exercise those 

 powers. I had permission to acquaint the Volksraad 

 of this, and asked permission to make a statement. 

 Paul Kruger desired that the public should be ex- 

 cluded, so the doors of the Raad were shut. When 

 I told the Raad and the President that I considered 

 it my duty to inform them, that Sir T. Shepstone 

 intended to annex the Transvaal in the name of 

 Great Britain, that it was the duty of the Raad and 

 the Government to be straight-forward and let Sir 

 T. Shepstone know what they would do in the event 

 of his taking the country. I pointed out that the 

 people had quitted the Cape Colony to get away 

 from British authority and that the Raad must judge 

 whether they were prepared to live quietly under 

 the British Flag again ; that as a sworn member of 

 the Transvaal Volksraad, I was in duty bound to 

 assist in any measure for the maintenance of the 

 independence of the country, but that if from 

 vacillation, or despair of getting the country out of 

 its present difficulties, the keys were handed over to 

 Sir T. Shepstone, and I again became a British 

 subject, I would remain loyal to that Government, 

 and that if the Boers afterwards changed their minds, 

 they need not then call upon me to fight because 

 / would not. I put the case as strongly as I could 

 against the annexation, but I could see that many of 

 the members did not care what happened. The 



