Of the results of our meeting it is impossible at present to say more than that it must have cleared away misconceptions on all sides If they have learnt anything as to the finality of the act of annexation--that I have no power to undo it, and do not believe that it will ever be undone, in the only sense in which they will ask it--I have, on the other hand, been shown the stubbornness of a determination to be content with nothing else, for which I was not prepared by the general testimony of officials who had been longer in the country, and who professed to believe that the opposition of the Boers was mere bluster, and that they had not the courage of their professed opinions.... I feel assured that the majority of the Committee felt very deeply what they believed to be a great national wrong.... But my conviction is that the real malcontents are far from being a majority of the whole white population, or even of their own class of Boer farmers. I have no doubt whatever that if the Executive were in a position to assert the supremacy of the law, to put an effectual stop to the reign of terrorism which exists at present, the discontented minority would cease to agitate, and would soon cease to feel grievances which a very brief discussion shows to be in the main sentimental; not the less keenly felt on that account, but not likely to survive the prosperity and good government, with a fair measure of self-government in its train, which are within their reach under British rule. And, again, he wrote to Lady Frere: PRETORIA, _April 20, 1879._ My last letter had not been gone many hours by the mail express when Lanyon ran into my room, to tell me that the Boer camp was actually broken up and the Boers dispersing. I need not tell you how thankful I was. The one thing I dreaded was civil war and bloodshed, and had a single malcontent been shot, I should have considered it a greater misfortune than the death of a dozen Piet Retiefs, or Uys, dying like heroes in the field of battle for their country and brethren. So you may imagine how thankful I felt to the Giver of all good, who has guided and protected us through life. I am to see a deputation from the Boers' Committee again to-morrow, and then I hope we shall have done with meetings and grievances--for the present a phrase which they carefully put into all references to their breaking up, and which they evidently mean. _It was clear to me that it was not the annexation, so much as the neglect to fulfil the promises and the expectations held out by Shepstone when he took over the Government, that has stirred up the great mass of the Boers, and given a handle to agitators._{02} There it is in a single sentence! It was not the annexation which caused the war; for nine men in every ten admitted that it was welcomed and justified by considerations of general South African policy, or else simply inevitable. No! It was the failure to fulfil the conditions of annexation!