Now, therefore, Her Majesty has been pleased to direct, and it is hereby declared, that the following articles of a new Convention, signed on behalf of Her Majesty by Her Majesty's High Commissioner in South Africa, the Right Honourable Sir Hercules George Herbert Robinson, Knight Grand Cross of the most distinguished Order of St. Michael and St. George, Governor of the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope, and on behalf of the Transvaal State (which shall hereinafter be called the South African Republic) by the above-named delegates, Stephanus Johannes Paulus Kruger, Stephanus Jacobus Du Toit, and Nicholas Jacobus Smit, shall, when ratified by the Volksraad of the South African Republic, be substituted for the articles embodied in the Convention of 3rd August, 1881; which latter, pending such ratification, shall continue in full force and effect. [NOTE.--The word "Preamble" is not prefixed to the opening passage of this Convention. When the suzerainty question arose in 1898 the British argument was that the 1884 Convention only altered the articles of the 1881 Convention, and left the Preamble in force; the Boer argument was that the 1884 Convention had a preamble, and therefore the earlier one must have been superseded.] GORDON'S MISSION TO KHARTOUM (1884). I. =Source.=--_Parliamentary Papers_, "Egypt," No. 2 of 1884, C 3,845. _P. 2. The Cabinet's Instructions to General Gordon._ Her Majesty's Government are desirous that you should proceed at once to Egypt, to report to them on the military situation in the Soudan, and on the measures which it may be advisable to take for the security of the Egyptian garrisons still holding positions in that country, and for the safety of the European population in Khartoum. You are also desired to consider and report upon the best mode of effecting the evacuation of the interior of the Soudan, and upon the manner in which the safety and good administration by the Egyptian Government of the ports on the sea coast can best be secured. In connection with this subject, you should pay especial consideration to the question of the steps that may usefully be taken to counteract the stimulus which it is feared may possibly be given to the Slave Trade by the present insurrectionary movement and by the withdrawal of the Egyptian authority from the interior. II. =Source.=--_Parliamentary Papers_, "Egypt," No. 6 of 1884, C 3,878. _Further Instructions by the Egyptian Government._