That same country four years
later cost us a million of money, the loss of nearly a thousand men
killed and wounded, and the ruin of many more confiding thousands, to
surrender. It is true, however, that nobody can accuse the retrocession
of having been conducted with judgment or ability--very much the
contrary.
There can be no more ample justification of the necessity of the issue
of the annexation proclamation than the proclamation itself--
First, it touches on the Sand River Convention of 1852, by which
independence was granted to the State, and shows that the "evident
objects and inciting motives" in granting such guarantee were to promote
peace, free-trade and friendly intercourse, in the hope and belief that
the Republic "would become a flourishing and self-sustaining State, a
source of strength and security to neighbouring European communities,
and a point from which Christianity and civilisation might rapidly
spread toward Central Africa." It goes on to show how these hopes have
been disappointed, and how that "increasing weakness in the State itself
on the one side, and more than corresponding growth of real strength
and confidence among the native tribes on the other have produced their
natural and inevitable consequence .
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