and not only had since the commencement of the war effectually cut off all communication by the direct line between King William's Town and Graham's Town by Line Drift, but carried devastation into the colony to the suburbs of Graham's Town, and far beyond it. One hundred miles north of this, the rebellious Tambookie tribes were still engaged in acts of spoliation and destruction of the property of the farmers of the districts of North Victoria, Albert, and Cradock. Although this war may have been at its commencement aggravated, if not provoked, by unjustifiable aggression on the part of certain individuals of the burgher population of the north-eastern districts, it no doubt had become a part of the general war of races, and had it not been checked by the gallant and able exertions of Captain Tylden,* of the Royal Engineers, who was sent thither by my predecessor to command, and who had organised a powerful force of native levies and burghers, of which he had made good use, it might have proved at least as formidable as that on the Kaffrarian frontier. This war, although much subdued, was not extinguished, and a system of captures and reprisals still prevailed, leaving the frontier in a state of insecurity and alarm, and obliging the abandonment of all border farms. The paramount Chief Kreili, who resides beyond the Kei, but whose hereditary and patriarchal influence is acknowledged, and extends over the whole of the Kafir tribes, was, notwithstanding a recent invasion of his territory, still decidedly aiding and abetting in the war of races, and contumaciously refused to comply with an injunction imposed by my predecessor to pay a fine of 1500 head of cattle, for damage done to certain missionary and trading property within his territory. In the Sovereignty, 400 miles removed from my base of operations, and with which, from the nature of the intervening country, the course of postal communication often occupied a • See page 90. fortnight or three weeks' interval, although no open hostilities had occurred, a mistaken policy on the part of the Resident had provoked a system of petty warfare between the burgher population and the powerful Basuto people, along their whole extensive frontier; and although both parties had abstained from destruction of property, captures of cattle and reprisals, with loss of life on both sides, were of frequent occurrence; and the Resident, who adopted the cause of the burghers without, as it appears to me, taking the course of investigation and mediation in cases where justice not only warranted but demanded it, having no military force to support his authority, had, on a former occasion, called into his aid certain petty native chieftains and their bands, whom he still openly instigated to vex and annoy the Basutos, whose powerful, and by no means ill-disposed, chief, he denounced as an enemy to the Queen. Although there did not appear to be any immediate danger in that quarter, reports led me to think that if this state of things were long suffered to continue, and the authority of the British Resident to be held in contempt, a war more difficult to manage and more expensive, because more remote, than the Kaffrarian war, must inevitably result, and one in which it is very questionable whether justice and good faith would be found to be on the side supported by the British Government. Added to these difficulties which remained for me to dispose of, a new feature in the border warfare had recently sprung up; this was an organised system among all the rebel Hottentots in arms, who, though separated in various laagers or camps under their respective commanders, had acknowledged the supreme authority of an able and influential Hottentot leader, of the name of William Uithaalder,* a pensioner from the Cape corps, who exercised the most arbitrary control over them; the force obedient to his command, when all concentrated at his bidding might amount to about 400 well-armed * Sec Appendix to Minute presented to Legislative Council, Letter B. and well-mounted men, many of whom were trained and disciplined deserters: the advantage of secret information, derived from unsuspected confederates in the colony, and the facilities of sudden concentration, and, when the deed was done, of equally sudden dispersion among the hostile Kafirs, rendered these enemies difficult to deal with, so that on one occasion, at the Koonap, they proved but too successful, and once only, by the indefatigable exertions of Lieutenant-Colonel Eyre* and the gallant troops under his command, was it found possible to hunt them up or surprise them with any real effect, by any movement of regular troops. This is the true state of things as I found them in the month of April and beginning of May. At that time the army at my disposal had been employed in most active and harassing expeditions or patrols, without intermission, for fifteen months, and they were not in a state to resume active operations without a short repose; especially the cavalry, whose horses, from hard service, scanty forage, and most unfavourable weather, I found reduced to a state almost of inanition, and for the time incapable of active service. I do not adduce these facts to lay claim to any merit in ultimately surmounting the difficulties they presented, but to justify a delay of nine months in the accomplishment of the task imposed upon me in my instructions, which popular error and too sanguine expectations seems to have led to a belief in England, at the time I assumed the command, might be accomplished in the short space of two or three months. Secondly. Having now stated the true state of things on the northern and eastern frontier as I found them, I proceed to advert to the measures I adopted to meet them; and as my official series of reports are already in your possession, I need not enter into details, but merely recapitulate the leading facts. In my first military despatch,† and, indeed, previously, when + Sec page 36. * Sce page 86. I first undertook this command, before my departure from England, I enunciated the principle upon which I intended to act, which was to commence systematically and proceed progressively to make good and maintain all advantages already gained, or which I might be able to gain, commencing first with the colony itself, and working outwards, and to this course I have steadily adhered. The first measure was, by means of a post at the Temacha,* and the renewal of the post at Line Drift, to re-open the direct communication with Graham's Town, most essential for commissariat supplies as well as military operations, but which had been cut off since the commencement of the war; this was attended with complete success, and has continued available ever since, without a single interruption of the communication, besides enabling me to extend a friendly tribe along the frontier, and displace a most troublesome enemy, the Chief Seyolo, who, from the constant annoyance occasioned to him by patrols from the post situated in the centre of his location, at length surrendered, and is now a prisoner at Cape Town. 2. To provide against the invasion of the colony by the formidable and lawless marauders to whom I have above adverted, a mounted police + was forthwith organised, as the only means of coping with enemies of that peculiar description; the emergency required that this force should be immediately effective, and although in its organisation I studied its ready adaptation to civil purposes, and future transfer to colonial charge, I could only raise it in time to be of use under martial law, and as a military levy. It may, no doubt, be considered expensive in its first organisation, but a cheap thing would have been a certain failure, and a bad thing would have been of no use. It was very satisfactory to me that it met with your sanction and ap proval. * See page 58. + Sec page 50. The success of this measure in protecting the colony from marauding inroads has surpassed my most sanguine expectations; the energies of the colonists have been called into full activity in their own defence, and the gallantry and zeal evinced by this police has mainly contributed to the extinction of a system of guerilla warfare, which promised to become most troublesome, and most difficult to be dealt with by regular troops, and, if not checked at once, most likely to resuscitate the rebellion within the colony in its full force. This establishment, though large and expensive at the outset, has in a great measure done its work, and is no longer required to the same extent; it has already been much reduced. Owing to the improved circumstances, advantages gained by the troops, and their own good services, by the end of the quarter, will not, I hope, entail a permanent expense of more than at the rate of 30,0007. per annum, pay, lodging, rations, horses, in short, everything included, and must become a colonial charge as soon as the Colonial Government may be settled so as to venture upon the provision and appropriation of colonial money for a new object. 3. The next step was an attempt to restrain, if not expel, the marauding tenants of the Waterkloof,* with such force as I could then withdraw with safety from Kaffraria and the southern extremity of the colonial frontier; but though the available force then at my disposal was not sufficient immediately to accomplish that object, three or four days' active operations caused the dispersion of a large portion of the enemy, and the establishment of a post in the centre, garrisoned by a battalion, and a closer investment by surrounding posts, held them sufficiently under control to complete satisfactory arrangements for leaving the colony in a sufficient state of security during my absence, to enable me to attend to another duty which I considered immediate and indispensable to the accom • See page 88. |