“At this time,” he writes (1857), “complaints were beginning to be heard that the practice of transferring apprentices, or selling indentures, was becoming frequent. It was rumored also that several lawless individuals were engaged in obtaining black children from neighboring tribes, and disposing of them under the name of apprentices. How many such cases occurred cannot be stated with any pretension to accuracy, but the number was not great. The condition of the country made it almost impossible to detain any one capable of performing service longer than he chose to remain with a white master, so that even if the farmers in general had been inclined to become slaveholders, they could not carry such inclinations into practice. The acts of a few of the most unruly individuals in the country might, however, endanger the peace and even the independence of the republic. The president, therefore, on the 29th of September, 1857, issued a proclamation pointing out that the sale or barter of black children was forbidden by the recently adopted constitution, and prohibiting transfers of apprenticeships, except when made before landdrosts.” Treating of a later period (1864–65), he returns to this matter, saying: “A subject that was much discussed in Europe, as well as in South Africa, during this period was the existence of slavery in the republic. Charges against the burghers of reducing weak and helpless blacks to a condition of servitude were numerous and boldly stated on one side, and were indignantly denied on the other. That the laws were clearly against slavery goes for nothing, because in a time of anarchy law is a dead letter. There is overwhelming evidence that blacks were transferred openly from one individual to another, and there are the strongest assertions from men of undoubted integrity that there was no slavery. To people in Europe it seemed impossible that both should be true, and the opinion was generally held that the farmers of the interior of South Africa were certainly slave-holders.