The recall of Sir Bartle Frere did not settle the South African difficulty. Sir G. P. Colley, in trying to avenge the defeat of Bronkhurst Spruit, was early in the year beaten by the Boers at Laing’s Nek and Ingogo. On the 26th of February, reinforced by Sir Evelyn Wood, he let the Boers out-manœuvre him, and spring upon the oddly variegated and composite force with which he had rashly occupied Majuba Hill. Though the enemy’s troops only consisted of raw levies of irregular sharpshooters, they soon dispersed the British host. It was a shameful rout, in which a kind fate doomed the luckless Colley to death. The unfortunate thing was that this fray should have happened at all. Negotiations were actually going on between the British and the Boers for a peaceful settlement.[172] Were they to be broken off? After admitting by opening up these negotiations, that the war was unjust, was a great and powerful Empire to go on with it for the sake of _prestige_? And was it, after all, British prowess that would be vindicated by victory? Was it not rather the fame of Sir George Pomeroy Colley that had alone been sullied? In other words, was England justified in slaughtering a few hundred Boer farmers, because Sir George Colley had let them beat his heroic but mismanaged troops in battle? It is impossible to say how the nation answered these difficult questions. But Mr. Gladstone’s reply was an emphatic “No,” although he had unfortunately declared, immediately after coming into office, that he would not grant the demands of the Boers, till they laid down their arms. The end of it was, that the Boers were allowed to set up an autonomous Republic under a British Protectorate, British interference being limited to controlling their foreign policy. It is curious to observe that this was the only act ever done by Mr. Gladstone which the European and American Press, with cordial unanimity, declared enhanced the _prestige_ of England, as a State so confident of its giant’s strength, that it deemed it ignoble to use it like a giant.