We
Had It By Two Rights, The Right Of Conquest And The Right Of
Purchase.
In 1806 our troops landed, defeated the local forces, and
took possession of Cape Town.
In 1814 we paid the large sum of six
million pounds to the Stadholder for the transference of this and
some South American land. It was a bargain which was probably made
rapidly and carelessly in that general redistribution which was
going on. As a house of call upon the way to India the place was
seen to be of value, but the country itself was looked upon as
unprofitable and desert. What would Castlereagh or Liverpool have
thought could they have seen the items which we were buying for our
six million pounds? The inventory would have been a mixed one of
good and of evil; nine fierce Kaffir wars, the greatest diamond
mines in the world, the wealthiest gold mines, two costly and
humiliating campaigns with men whom we respected even when we
fought with them, and now at last, we hope, a South Africa of peace
and prosperity, with equal rights and equal duties for all men. The
future should hold something very good for us in that land, for if
we merely count the past we should be compelled to say that we
should have been stronger, richer, and higher in the world's esteem
had our possessions there never passed beyond the range of the guns
of our men-of-war. But surely the most arduous is the most
honourable, and, looking back from the end of their journey, our
descendants may see that our long record of struggle, with its
mixture of disaster and success, its outpouring of blood and of
treasure, has always tended to some great and enduring goal.
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Words from 1585 to 1880
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