But the annexation was now a fact. In England it was received with comparative indifference by the Tories and with a sort of passive hostility by the Liberals. No one seemed to know very much of the real state of affairs, and when, in the autumn of 1879, Mr. Gladstone practically urged the independence of the Boers as a portion of Liberal policy, his party opponents did not themselves realize the greatness of the issue involved or the inevitable consequences of playing with Empire questions as with measures for the building of a local bridge or the amending of some local law. In South Africa the English element rejoiced greatly at the annexation, and never dreamt of its reversal. [Sidenote: Dr. Moffat's Joy Over Annexation] The Rev. Dr. Robert Moffat, writing privately on July 27, 1877, with all his long accumulated experience in the South African missionary field,[1] declared that: "I have no words to express the pleasure the annexation of the Transvaal Territory has afforded me. It is one of the most important measures our Government could have adopted as regards the Republic as well as the aborigines. I have no hesitation in pronouncing the step one fraught with incalculable benefit to both parties, _i.e._, the settlers and the native tribes. A residence of more than half a century beyond the Colonial boundary is quite sufficient to authorize me to write with confidence that Lord Carnarvon's action will be the commencement of an era of blessing to South Africa." Such was the general view of the English element at the Cape, and such would have been the expressed view of Dutchmen like President Brand of the Free State if they could have ventured to explain their own sentiments. But Lord Carnarvon proposed, and Mr. Kruger's astute perception, combined with Hollander scheming and the fickleness of British party policy, disposed. [1] Letter to Alexander McArthur, M.P., published in the _English Independent_ of August 16, 1877. [Sidenote: Dutch Appeal to Gladstone] Slowly but surely Kruger played upon Boer ignorance and local prejudices, intense aversion to taxation and dislike of the English. Slowly and steadily he worked upon the racial sentiment of the Dutch at the Cape, until, in 1880, they largely signed an address to Mr. Gladstone asking his support for the "liberties" of their kinsmen. Eventually, he defeated, by indirect means, Sir Bartle Frere's policy of federating Cape Colony, Natal, Griqualand West and the Transvaal when it came before the Cape Legislature in June, 1880. Carefully, but with certainty, he built upon the shifting sands of England's Colonial policy that later structure of personal supremacy so well described by Kipling: "Cruel in the shadow, crafty in the sun, Far beyond his border shall his teaching run. Sloven, sullen, savage, secret, uncontrolled, Laying on a new land evil of the old."