If It Had Been Necessary To Prevent Supplies Of Ammunition
From Finding Their Way Into The Country, As It Probably
Was,
one might imagine that the exception should not have been made
in favor of either Boers or Caffres, our
Openly-avowed enemies;
but, nevertheless, the exception was made, and is still continued
in favor of the Boers, while the Bechuanas and Griquas,
our constant friends, are debarred from obtaining a single ounce
for either defense or trade; indeed, such was the state of ignorance
as to the relation of the border tribes with the English, even at Cape Town,
that the magistrates, though willing to aid my researches,
were sorely afraid to allow me to purchase more than ten pounds of gunpowder,
lest the Bechuanas should take it from me by force. As it turned out,
I actually left more than that quantity for upward of two years
in an open box in my wagon at Linyanti.
The lamented Sir George Cathcart, apparently unconscious of what he was doing,
entered into a treaty with the Transvaal Boers, in which articles
were introduced for the free passage of English traders to the north,
and for the entire prohibition of slavery in the free state.
Then passed the "gunpowder ordinance", by which the Bechuanas,
whom alone the Boers dare attempt to enslave, were rendered quite defenseless.
The Boers never attempt to fight with Caffres, nor to settle in Caffreland.
We still continue to observe the treaty. The Boers never did,
and never intended to abide by its provisions; for, immediately on
the proclamation of their independence, a slave-hunt was undertaken
against the Bechuanas of Sechele by four hundred Boers, under Mr. Peit Scholz,
and the plan was adopted which had been cherished in their hearts
ever since the emancipation of the Hottentots.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 174 of 1070
Words from 50269 to 50570
of 306638
