We have now considered in turn every accusation brought against the Zulu king up to the end of 1878, when Sir Bartle Frere delivered his ultimatum, which he had said beforehand would put an end to our peaceful relations with our neighbours. We venture to assert that, with the exception of the last, every one of these accusations is distinctly refuted on evidence gathered from official sources. Of that last, we would observe, that, although it cannot be entirely denied, the fault has been greatly exaggerated; while that part of it which referred to the sole instance of a hasty reply to the Natal Government, has been condoned by two years’ friendly relations since the offence, before it was raked up by Sir Bartle Frere as an additional pretext for the war. And, at all events, had Cetshwayo’s severity to his people been a hundred times greater than it ever was, he could not in a lifetime have produced the misery which this one year’s campaign has wrought. Yet these accusations were the sole pretexts for the war, except that fear of the proximity of a nation strong enough and warlike enough to injure us, _if it wished to do so_, which Sir Bartle Frere declared made it impossible for peaceful subjects of Her Majesty to feel security for life or property within fifty miles of the border, and made the existence of a peaceful English community in the neighbourhood impossible.[110] He speaks in the same despatch (2269, pp. 1, 2) of the king as “an irresponsible, bloodthirsty, and treacherous despot,” which terms, and others like them, do duty again and again for solid facts, but of the justice of which he gives no proof whatever. We cannot do better than give, in conclusion, and as a comment upon the above fear, a quotation from Lord Blachford’s speech in the House of Lords, March 26th, 1879, which runs: