of
Cape Colony. The Transvaal had been already disposed of by the Sand
River Convention, but, immediately after his arrival, May 13, 1852,
General Cathcart issued a formal proclamation confirming this
convention. It appeared, too, that it might be desirable to shift the
charge of maintenance and local defence of the Orange River Sovereignty
to the shoulders of the pioneer settlers. This conviction was confirmed
by the outbreak of a war with the Basutos, the most powerful native
tribe in this territory, under a cunning chief, Moshesh. In November,
1852, General Cathcart led a little army of two thousand infantry and
five hundred cavalry to the Caledon River, but in the following month
his expedition was beset by an overwhelming force of Basutos at Berea
Mountain, and the battle was in effect a repulse to the British. After
leaving a garrison at Bloemfontein, General Cathcart withdrew under
cover of a fragile proclamation of peace, but his report and the
accompanying news were so discouraging that the Duke of Newcastle
wrote to him that " her Majesty's Government had decided to withdraw
from the Orange River Sovereignty." In pursuance of this conclusion a
convention was signed February 23, 1854, at Bloemfontein, by Sir George
Russell Clerk, special commissioner representing Great Britain, and by
the delegates from districts in the sovereignty. By this convention
the independence of the settlers in the sovereignty was guaranteed, and
the administration was handed over to a provisional council, which took
charge until the first sitting of the Volksraad, March 28, 1854, and
the declaration of a republic in the following month under the name of
the Orange Free State. This independent state covered the greater part
of the territory comprised within the bounds of the Orange River
Sovereignty, excepting the large division between the Caledon River and
the Quathlamba Mountains, reserved to the Basutos, and smaller
reservations on the Vaal held by the Griquas.
Within
the limits of the whole district between the Orange and the Vaal rivers
there were then not more than fifteen thousand whites scattered over a
territory of many thousand square
