Meanwhile it was apparent, from authentic Boer official papers, that the Zulus were threatened by the Boer Government that, if they dared to complain again to the British Government, the South African Republic “would deal severely with them, and that they would also endanger their lives;” while such expressions used by the Volksraad of the South African Republic as the following, when they resolve “to direct the Government to continue in the course it had adopted with reference to the policy on the eastern frontier, with such caution as the Volksraad expects from the Government with confidence; and in this matter to give it the right to take such steps as will more fully benefit the interests of the population than _the strict words of the law of the country lay down_” (2220, p. 337), convicts them of dishonesty out of their own mouths. Finally the Commissioners report that in their judgment, east of the Buffalo, “there has been no cession of land at all by the Zulu kings, past or present, or by the nation.” They consider, however, that—as the Utrecht district has long been inhabited by Boers, who have laid out the site for a town, and built upon it, and as the Zulu nation had virtually acquiesced in the Boer authority over it by treating with them for the rendition of fugitives who had taken refuge there—the Transvaal should be allowed to retain that portion of the land in dispute, compensation being given to the Zulus inhabiting that district if they surrendered the lands occupied by them and returned to Zululand, or permission being given them to become British subjects and to continue to occupy the land. Sir Bartle Frere’s version of this is as follows: