Street must repent her liberality, and wish,--ah, so fruitlessly,--that Sir George Clerk had never been sent upon that expedition. With a Permissive South Africa Confederation Bill carried after infinite trouble, and an independent State in the middle of South Africa very little inclined to Confederation, the present holder of the Colonial seals[12] cannot admire much the peculiar virtue which in 1854 induced his predecessor to surrender the Orange territory to the Dutch in opposition to the wish of all the then inhabitants of the country. For the surrender was not made to please the people of the country. Down in Natal the Dutch had wanted a Republic. Up in the Sovereignty, as it was then called, they also had wanted a Republic when old Pretorius was at their head. But since that time there had come troubles with the Basutos,--troubles which were by no means ended,--and the Dutch were now willing enough to put up with dependence and British protection. The Dutch have been so cross-grained that the peculiar colonial virtue of the day has never been able to take their side. “We have come here only because you have undertaken to govern us and protect us,” said those of the Dutch who had followed and not preceded us across the Orange. And it was impossible to contradict them. I do not think that any body could now dispassionately inquire into the circumstances of South Africa without calling in question the wisdom of the Government at home in abandoning the control of the territory north of the Orange River. But the Republic was established. For some years it had a most troubled life. Mr. Boshof was elected the first President and retained that office till 1859. He seems to have been a man of firmness and wisdom, but to have found his neighbours the Basutos to be almost too much for him. There was war with this tribe more or less during his whole time. There was a branch of the tribe of the Basutos living on a territory in the Free State,--a people whom I will describe more at length in a following chapter,--over whom and over whose property Moshesh the Chief of the Basutos claimed sovereignty; but it was impossible for the Free State to admit the claim as it could itself only exist by dictating boundaries and terms to the Baralongs,--which they were willing enough to receive as being a protection against their enemies the Basutos.