The question in dispute is whether we did an injustice to the Orange Free State by taking possession of Griqualand West in 1871 when diamonds had already been discovered there and the value of the district had been acknowledged. At that time it was claimed by the Orange Free State whose subjects had inhabited the land before a diamond had been found, and which had levied taxes on the Boers who had taken up land there as though the country had belonged to the Republic. Since the annexation has been effected by us we have, in a measure, acknowledged the claim of the Free State by agreeing to pay to it a sum of £90,000--as compensation for what injustice we may have done; and we have so far admitted that the Free State has had something to say for itself. The district in question at a period not very remote was as little valuable perhaps as any land on the earth’s surface lying adjacent to British territory. The first mention I find of the Griquas is of their existence as a bastard Hottentot tribe in 1811 when one Adam Kok was their captain. The word Griqua signifies bastard, and Adam Kok was probably half Dutchman and half Hottentot. In 1821 Adam Kok was dismissed or resigned, and Andreas Waterboer was elected in his place. Kok then went eastwards with perhaps half the tribe, and settled himself at a place which the reader will find on the map, under the name of Philipolis, north of the Orange river in the now existing Orange Free State. Then some line of demarcation was made between Waterboer’s lands and Kok’s lands, which line leaves the Diamond Fields on one side or--on the other. Adam Kok then trekked further eastward with the Griquas of Griqualand East, as they had come to be called, to a territory south of Natal, which had probably been depopulated by the Zulus. This territory was then called No Man’s Land, but is now marked on the maps as Adam Kok’s Land. But he gave some power of attorney enabling an agent to sell the lands he left behind him, and under this power his lands were sold to the Orange Free State which had established itself in 1854. The Free State claims to have bought the Diamond Fields,--diamonds having been then unknown,--under this deed. But it is alleged that the deed only empowered the agent to sell the lands in and round Philipolis on which Adam Kok’s Griquas had been living. It is certain, however, that Adam Kok had continued to exercise a certain right of sovereignty over the territory in question after his deposition or resignation, and that he made over land to the Boers of the Free State by some deed which the Boers had accepted as giving a good title. It is equally certain that old Waterboer’s son had remonstrated against these proceedings and had objected to the coming in of the Boers under Kok’s authority.