Sir Henry Bulwer expressed his satisfaction at this reply, speaking of it as a far more satisfactory one than they had been led to expect (2000, p. 138), and he writes of it to Sir T. Shepstone thus: “You will see by the king’s reply that he has met my representations in a very proper spirit.... I have no reason to think that what the king says is said otherwise than in good faith; and, if this be so, there seems to me to be no reason why this dispute should not be settled in a peaceable manner” (2097, p. 26), and he says to Cetshwayo himself, “The Lieutenant-Governor has heard the words of Cetshwayo. He is glad that the words which he lately sent to Cetshwayo were welcome. They were words sent in a friendly spirit, and Cetshwayo received them in a friendly spirit. This is as it should be,” and he agrees to the king’s proposal concerning commissioners from Natal, provided that the Transvaal Government agree also. The following is the account given by the Government messengers, who carried Sir H. Bulwer’s message to Cetshwayo of the manner in which it was received by the king and his indunas (2079, p. 25): “While we spoke to Cetshwayo, we saw that what we were saying lifted a great weight from his heart, that they were words which he was glad to hear; and what he said to us as we finished showed us we were right in this belief.... “We could see, when we arrived at the great kraal, that the indunas, and even the king, were not easy in their hearts, and from all we could see and gather, the chief men under the king did not wish for war. After the message was delivered, all of them appeared like men who had been carrying a very heavy burden, and who had only then been told that they could put it down and rest.” It is best known to himself how, in the face of these words, and with nothing to support his statement, Sir Bartle Frere could venture to assert in his fourth letter to the Bishop, “The offers to arbitrate originated with the Natal Government, and were by no means willingly accepted by Cetshwayo;” Cetshwayo having, in point of fact, earnestly asked for arbitration again and again, as we have already shown, and rejoicing greatly when at last it was offered him. Mr. J. Shepstone’s observation also (2144, p. 184), that “To this suggestion Cetshwayo replied ‘that he had no objection,’” hardly gives a fair view of the state of the case. But, before this satisfactory agreement had been arrived at, Sir T. Shepstone had managed still further to exasperate the feelings of the Zulus against the new Government of the Transvaal, while the fact that Natal and the Transvaal were one, and that to touch one was to touch the other, and to touch England also, had not been brought home to the king’s mind until he received Sir H. Bulwer’s message.