Nothing whatever was said in this latest convention of the suzerainty of the British Sovereign mentioned in that of 1881, and, as this instrument, negotiated in London with Lord Derby, the Colonial Secretary, was understood to take the place of all former conventions, the Africanders of the Transvaal have contended very reasonably that the omission is sufficient evidence of the renunciation of suzerainty by the British government. Furthermore, by the London Convention of 1884, the British crown for the first time conceded to the Transvaal the title of “The South African Republic,” by which name it has ever since been designated in all diplomatic transactions and correspondence between it and other states. CHAPTER XII. THE AFRICANDER REPUBLICS AND BRITISH POLICY. The surprising policy pursued by the British government in arbitrarily annexing the Transvaal in 1877, and in restoring its independence in 1881, after a brief and indecisive conflict at arms, and when strong re-enforcements had placed the imperial troops in position to crush the Africander uprising, caused widespread dissatisfaction and bitter controversy both in England and in South Africa. Why had the country been annexed at all? And seeing it had been annexed, why was it so ignominiously yielded up immediately after the disgrace of Majuba Hill? There were many at home and in the South African colonies who would have been satisfied to restore the independence of the Transvaal—but only after having inflicted on the Africander forces at least one crushing defeat. The only reply of the Liberal government was to the effect that the annexation, and the refusal to reverse it, had been due to misapprehension of the facts; that the officers of the crown in South Africa, partly through ignorance and partly through prejudice, had reported that there was no such passionate desire for independence among the Africanders as was pretended by their leaders, and as was proved to exist by the uprising; that as soon as the facts were known it became the duty of a liberty-loving people like the English to honor their own principles by the immediate retrocession of the Transvaal without waiting to first avenge defeats and vindicate the military superiority of Great Britain; and that a great country better illustrated her greatness by doing justice and showing mercy, even at great cost to herself, than by taking a bloody revenge for reverses suffered on the fields of war in trying to enforce a policy now seen to be morally wrong.