Another Colonial subject forces itself upon our attention—the -state of
the expedition sent from the Cape of Good Hope to .take military possession of Natal, the settlement founded by 'the Dutch Farmers. Three sets of news have been received : according to the earlier, the small detachment had been de- prived of its stores and hemmed in by a vastly superior force ; according to a later report, the commander, Captain SMITH, had been wounded and had surrendered with the remainder of his men; the latest accounts say that he and his soldiers are "safe." The history of the expedition is in every respect discredit- able to the Colonial authorities. The Farmers were driven to emi- grate by a fast-and-loose policy, that exacted obedience to the law from them, but left them exposed to the lawless aggressions of the aborigines on the border, with other grievances of a practical na- ture; from which, unable to obtain redress, they fled, and esta- blished a settlement of their own beyond the frontier. They as- serted independence of the British Government ; and, instead of instantly quashing the treasonable attempt, the Government par- leyed with them for a series of years ; during which the rebel emi- grants overcame the first difficulties of their position, and were for- tified by the accession of numbers and the habit of self-reliance. At last the Government resorted to action, but did so in such manner as to insure defeat : a very small body of soldiers were sent, not by sea but by land, over a difficult country, encumbered with baggage-wagons which they had to force across more than a hundred rivers and streams,—as if the object had been to present the little band, exhausted and disheartened, before the sturdy multi- tude over whom they were to assert British supremacy. We have seen what is their perilous and doubtful position. A larger force has now been sent to carry on the war, which was bred in mis- government and fostered by neglect and culpable feebleness of action. But the subject was "only a Colonial one," and so "the department" has been made answerable only to itself!
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