After this period various dissensions arose in the Boer camp between Pretorius, who styled himself "Chief of the whole united emigrant force," and Potgieter, who looked upon himself somewhat in the light of a rival. While these worthies fell out Sir Harry Smith saw the annexation carried through, and the territory of the modern Free State was united to Cape Colony, under the title of the Orange River Sovereignty. The contumacious Boers took themselves off with their leader across the Vaal, and fresh European settlers came in and established themselves in the fertile plains that were deserted. For some time after this things prospered, and Sir Harry saw before him the prospect of a new self-governing Dutch colony, which would resemble and equal those of Natal and the Cape. But he reckoned without his host, and all that he had taken the trouble to do was ultimately undone. In 1852 the Government at home declared its policy to be the ultimate abandonment of the Orange River Sovereignty. For this pusillanimous policy there were several reasons, the greatest being a fear of a Basuto rising and the trouble it would entail. The British Government therefore decided to maintain its rights over the Transvaal no further, and by the Sand River Convention, signed on the 17th of January 1852, the emigrant farmers beyond the Vaal River were given the right to manage their own affairs, subject only to the condition that they should neither permit nor encourage slavery. About this time commenced the threatened rise of the Basutos in the neighbourhood of the Orange River territory. The Basutos are a branch of the Bechuana race, who had been formed by their chiefs Motlume and Moshesh into a powerful nation, which could hold its own against Boer or Zulu. With this race the Home Government desired to have nothing to do, and the Colonial Office, viewing the political game as not worth the candle, definitely withdrew from the Orange River Sovereignty, leaving the Free State to come into being, and devise its own plans for overawing its enemies on the other side of the border. Accordingly, in 1854, Sir Harry Smith's programme of annexation was entirely wiped out, British sovereignty renounced, and the Orange Free State left to become a Republic and take care of itself! CHAPTER I THE GROWTH OF THE TRANSVAAL Fifty years ago there was no Transvaal. To-day its area is rather larger than Great Britain. It extends over some 75,000,000 acres.