At this time the Cape was regarded the least prosperous of all the British colonies, and there was a growing indisposition to annex any more territory in South Africa. The soil was mostly arid. The Africander population was alien. The Kaffir wars threatened to be endless and very costly in men and in money. This reluctance to enlarge had been overcome in the case of Natal; but Natal was the garden of South Africa and the possession of it gave the British command of the east coast almost to Delagoa Bay. But to the north there seemed to be nothing sufficiently inviting to justify the taking up of new responsibility and expense. The problem of how to safeguard the peace of the old Cape Colony without undertaking the burdens involved in governing and holding the whole Africander territory to the northeast, including the region beyond the Vaal River, was thought to have been solved by Doctor Philip, an English missionary, who had some influence with the government. The scheme recommended by Doctor Philip was that the government should create a line of native states under British control along the northeast border of Cape Colony. These would act, he claimed, as a barrier to break the influence of the more turbulent Africanders in the regions north of that line on those of their blood who were yet citizens of the old colony, and they would, in like manner, separate between the native tribes in the colony and those in the interior. Doctor Philip’s plan was adopted with much enthusiasm. A treaty suitable to the purpose contemplated had already been made with a northern Griqua leader named Waterboer. In 1843 two other treaties were made, one with Moshesh of the Basutos and the other with Adam Kok, a leader of the Orange River Griquas. It was fondly believed that these three states, recognized by and in treaty with Great Britain, would isolate the colony from the disturbing and dangerous people to the north of them. Doctor Philip’s promising arrangement disappointed every one. The Africanders living in the territory of the Griquas refused to be bound in any sense by a treaty made by the despised half-breeds, and the former troubles continued. A further effort was made to give effect to the doctor’s statesmanship by establishing a military post at Bloemfontein, about half way between the Orange River and the Vaal, for the purpose of enforcing order and of carrying out the provisions of the treaty. This step was followed up in 1848 by the formal annexation to the British dominions in South Africa of the entire country lying between the Orange and the Vaal, under the name of the Orange River Sovereignty. The second contact of Boer and Briton, begun in Natal in 1842, was thus extended into the Orange River territory.