Meanwhile the despatches received from Sir Michael Hicks-Beach contained comments amounting to censure upon the High Commissioner’s proceedings in forcing on a war with the Zulus. He is plainly told that he should have waited to consult Her Majesty’s Government upon the terms that Cetshwayo should be called upon to accept, and that “they have been unable to find in the documents you have placed before them that evidence of urgent necessity for immediate action which alone could justify you in taking, without their full knowledge and sanction, a course almost certain to result in a war, which, as I had previously impressed upon you, every effort should have been used to avoid.” “The communication which had passed between us,” continues the Secretary of State, “as to the objects for which the reinforcements were requested and sent, and as to the nature of the questions in dispute with the Zulu king, were such as to render it especially needful that Her Majesty’s Government should understand and approve any important step, not already suggested to them, before you were committed to it; and if that step was likely to increase the probability of war, an opportunity should certainly have been afforded to them of considering as well the time as the manner of coming to issue—should it be necessary to come to issue—with the Zulu king. And though the further correspondence necessary for this purpose might have involved the loss of a favourable season for the operations of the British troops, and might have afforded to Cetywayo the means of further arming and provisioning his forces, the circumstances rendered it imperative that, even at the risk of this disadvantage, full explanations should be exchanged.”