Lord Chelmsford, with a force of soldiers and sailors, marched in April from Natal to the relief of Colonel Pearson at Eshowe. He arrived there in safety, after having encountered and beaten back the Zulus at Ginginlova: yet it was not until the 4th of July that the troops eventually reached Ulundi, where the final battle and victory took place. But of this later. AFFAIRS AT HOME Two days after the arrival of the news of the disaster at Isandlwana, Parliament met. The reverse in Zululand naturally engrossed all thoughts. Questions innumerable were addressed to Government, as to the strength of reinforcements to be sent out--as to the further necessity for war at all--as to the so-called high-handed action of Sir Bartle Frere, and the so-called blunders of Lord Chelmsford. Scapegoats were wanted, and, as a natural consequence, the two most energetic and hard-worked of the Queen's servants were attacked. A political pitched battle was imminent. The Ministers declined to withdraw their confidence from the Lord High Commissioner, though they passed on him censure for his hasty and independent proceedings. That the members of Government had a high appreciation of his great experience, ability, and energy was apparent, for they declared they had "no desire to withdraw in the present crisis of affairs the confidence hitherto reposed in him, the continuance of which was now more than ever needed to conduct our difficulties in South Africa to a successful termination." On the 19th of March 1879 the Secretary of the Colonies wrote to Sir Bartle Frere, to the effect that Ministers were unable to find, on the documents placed before them, "that evidence of urgent necessity for immediate action which alone would justify him in taking, without their full knowledge and sanction, a course almost certain to result in a war." The day for discussion of South African affairs in the Upper House arrived. Lord Lansdowne moved, on the 11th of March, "That this House, while willing to support her Majesty's Government in all necessary measures for defending the possessions of her Majesty in South Africa, regrets that the _ultimatum_, which was calculated to produce immediate war, should have been presented to the Zulu king without authority from the responsible advisers of the Crown, and that an offensive war should have been commenced without imperative and pressing necessity or adequate preparation; and the House regrets that, after the censure passed upon the High Commissioner by her Majesty's Government, in the despatch of March 19, 1879, the conduct of affairs in South Africa should be retained in his hands."