It was some time before the Transvaalers recovered from the stunning effects of the blow by which they had been deprived of their liberties, and meanwhile the new Government made rapid advances, and vigorous attempts at winning popularity amongst the people. Sir T. Shepstone hastened to fill up every office under him with his own men, although there were great flourishes of trumpets concerning preserving the rights of the people to the greatest extent possible, and keeping the original men in office wherever practicable. The first stroke by which popularity was aimed at was that of remitting the war taxes levied upon the white population (though unpaid) to meet the expenses of the war with Sikukuni. It became apparent at this point what an empty sham was our proposed protection of Sikukuni, and how little the oppression under which he and his people suffered had really called forth our interference. Sir T. Shepstone, while remitting, as stated, the tax upon the Boers, insisted upon the payment in full of the fine in cattle levied by them upon Sikukuni’s people. So sternly did he carry out the very oppressions which he came to put an end to, that a portion of the cattle paid towards the fine (two thousand head, a large number, in the reduced and impoverished state of the people) were sent back, by his orders, on the grounds that they were too small and in poor condition, with the accompanying message that better ones must be sent in their place. A commission (composed of Captain Clarke, R.A., and Mr. Osborne) was sent, before the annexation, by Sir T. Shepstone, to inquire into a treaty pressed by the Boers upon Sikukuni, and rejected by him, as it contained a condition by which he was to pay taxes, and thereby come under the Transvaal Government.[61] To these gentlemen “Sikukuni stated that the English were great and he was little [C. 1776, p. 147], that he wanted them to save him from the Boers, who hunted him to and fro, and shot his people down like wild game. He had lost two thousand men” (this included those who submitted to the Boers) “by the war, ten brothers, and four sons.... He could not trust the Boers as they were always deceiving him.” After saying that “he wished to be like Moshesh” (a British subject), and be “happy and at peace,” he “asked whether he ought to pay the two thousand head of cattle, seeing that the war was not of his making.” “To this we replied,” say the Commissioners, “that it was the custom of us English, when we made an engagement, to fulfil it, cost what it might; that our word was our word.”