In the provisions of this convention the British government expressly “guaranteed to the emigrant-farmers beyond the Vaal River the right to manage their own affairs and to govern themselves according to their own laws, without any interference on the part of the British government,” and it permitted the emigrants to purchase ammunition in the British colonies in South Africa. It also disclaimed “all alliances with any of the colored nations north of the Vaal River,” and stipulated that “no slavery is or shall be permitted or practiced by the farmers north of the Vaal River.” The Transvaal Republic, called, later, the South African Republic, dates its independence from this convention, concluded at Sand River in 1852. It also, by the same instrument, severed itself and its interests from the Africander emigrants living in the Sovereignty south of the Vaal—an act which their southern brethren deemed little short of a betrayal. For a few months after the convention of 1852 the Sovereignty continued British, and might have done so for many years but for a serious defeat of the British arms in that territory by the Basutos. General Cathcart, who had just been installed as governor of the Cape, rashly attacked the Basutos with a strong force of regulars, was led into an ambush and suffered so great a disaster that further hostile operations were impossible without a new and larger army. The politic Moshesh saw in the situation an opportunity to make peace with the English on favorable terms, which he at once proceeded to do. This crushing reverse called out a report to the British ministers relative to the condition of affairs in the Sovereignty, and a statement of the policy he favored in reference to that part of her majesty’s dominions, from Sir George Clark, the special commissioner appointed to settle the affairs thereof. The closing paragraphs of that report read as follows: “The more I consider the position, relative both to the Cape colony and its (the Sovereignty’s) own internal circumstances, the more I feel assured of its inutility as an acquisition, and am impressed with a sense of the vain conceit of continuing to supply it with civil and military establishments in a manner becoming the character of the British Government, and advantageous to our resources.