Sir
Henry Barkly succeeded Lieutenant General Hay early in 1871 as her
Majesty's High Commissioner and Governor of Cape Colony, and was
expressly instructed by Earl Kimberley, the British secretary for the
colonies (January 24, 1871), not to countenance any annexation of
territory outside of the uncontested limits of Cape Colony, which the
Colony would be unable to govern and defend with its own unaided
resources. But the new High Commissioner — viewing the situation and
the course of his predecessor, which he cordially approved — replied to
his instructions bluntly that the British Government " had already gone
too far to admit of its ceasing to support the cause of either
Waterboer or the diggers."1 He concluded an arrangement,
accordingly, for the transfer to Great Britain of the claims of the
native chiefs, subject to the ratification of the Home Government, and
his representations secured the consent of the Ministry, in the
following May, to the transfer, and to the assertion of British
sovereignty over the disputed territory, pending the final decision of
the special court of arbitration which had been convened by the
agreement of the contesting claimants.
The court had been opened, in the previous April (1871), in the village of Bloemfontein. After considering the evidence
presented,
the judges disagreed, and the disposition of the territory depended
upon the award of the referee, Lieutenant Governor Keate, of Natal.
This was not rendered until the 17th of October following, and it does
not appear that the decision was hurried or improperly influenced. But
it was
1 "South Africa," Theal.
