“It is a vast territory, possessing nothing that can sanction its being permanently added to a frontier already inconveniently extended. It secures no genuine interests; it is recommended by no prudent or justifiable motive; it answers no really beneficial purpose; it imparts no strength to the British Government, no credit to its character, no lustre to the crown. To remain here, therefore, to superintend or to countenance this extension of British dominion, or to take part in any administrative measure for the furtherance of so unessential an object, would, I conceive, be tantamount to my encouraging a serious evil, and participating in one of the most signal fallacies which has ever come under my notice in the course of nearly thirty years devoted to the public service.” The British Government, weary of the perpetual native wars, disgusted at the late defeat of the British regulars by Moshesh and his Basutos, and influenced by the emphatic and very significant report of their special commissioner, which report was heartily indorsed by Governor Cathcart, decided to abandon the Orange River Sovereignty altogether. An act of parliament in accordance with that decision was passed. Later, when there were vehement protests against the abandonment—protests from the missionaries who feared for the welfare of the natives, and from English settlers in the Sovereignty who desired to remain subject to the British crown—a motion was made in the House of Commons begging the Queen to reconsider the renunciation of her sovereignty over the Orange River territory, but the motion found no support at all, and had to be withdrawn. Instead, parliament voted £48,000 to compensate any who might suffer loss in the coming change, so eager were the authorities to be rid of this large territory with its constant vexations and its costliness. And thus it was that independence was literally forced upon the Orange River country. By the convention of the 23d of February, 1854, signed at Bloemfontein, the British government “guaranteed the future independence of the country and its government,” and covenanted that they should be, “to all intents and purposes, a free and independent people.” It further provided that the Orange River government was to be free to purchase ammunition in the British South African colonies, and that liberal privileges were to be granted it in connection with import duties. As in the case of the Transvaal, so in this convention it was stipulated, that no slavery or trade in slaves was to be permitted north of the Orange River. The name given to the new nation was “The Orange River Free State.”