"Sir,—In my despatch of January 24th last, I only partially answered your despatch of December 18th. I was, in fact, interrupted while writing by the intelligence of our disaster at the headquarter camp on the 22nd, and was obliged to close my unfinished despatch to be in time for the mail. The very serious check which we received on the 22nd does not, however, seem to me to call for any modification in the opinions I had already ventured to lay before her Majesty's Government; on the contrary, it seems to confirm most strongly the arguments I had already advanced in my despatch of the 24th, to show that it was impossible, with any regard to the safety of these colonies, to defer placing in the hands of the general commanding her Majesty's forces the enforcement of the demands made on Cetywayo. Deeply as, in common with every subject of her Majesty, I deplore the disastrous check we have received, it is impossible to shut one's eyes to the fact that it was, in all human probability, mainly due to disregard of the general's orders that so great a disaster occurred; whilst every circumstance accompanying or following the events of that day proves what an insecure position we occupied both here and in the Transvaal with such a neighbour along so many hundred miles of undefended frontier. As a consequence of the crippling of Colonel Glyn's and Colonel Durnford's columns, and the shock which has been given to the colonial forces, Europeans as well as natives, the columns of Colonel Pearson and Colonel Wood have been obliged to suspend their advance and await reinforcements, which can only be looked for to the extent required from more distant parts of South Africa and from England. It has become painfully evident that the Zulu king has an army at his command, which could almost any day unexpectedly invade Natal, and, owing to the great extent of frontier and utter helplessness of the undisciplined hordes of Natal natives to offer effectual resistance, the Zulus might march at will through the country, devastating and murdering, without a chance of being checked, so long as they abstained from attacking the entrenched posts of her Majesty's troops, which are from fifty to a hundred miles apart. The capital and all the principal towns are at this moment in 'laager,' prepared for attack, which, even if successfully resisted, would leave two-thirds of them in ashes, and the country around thoroughly desolated. From every part of South Africa outside the colony, where the native races predominate, come the same reports of uneasiness and of intended rising of the native race against the white man; whilst the majority of the Transvaal European population is in a state of avowed readiness to take any opportunity of shaking off the yoke of the English Government. It may be said that these are only the stronger reasons why hostilities should not have been commenced with the Zulu king.