A kind of ovation has been awarded to Sir Harry
Smith at his landing on his native shores. An address was presented to him at Portsmouth, and already his name is put forth as an eligible can- didate for Parliamentary honours. To each tributes to his frank and soldierly bearing, under the scurvy treatment of the late Secre- tary of State for the Colonies, and to his private virtues, there can be no reasonable objection. But no weight can be allowed to mere sentiment in judging of the past policy pursued at the Cape, and the actual prospects of the colony.
For the manner in which the colonists have been treated since Sir Harry Smith has been Governor, the late Ministry are chiefly responsible. He- was only their agent, and it may be that his better dispositions have in some instances tempered their splenetic wrOngheadedness. But it cannot be overlooked, that in his last despatch he speaks of the colonists who were in opposition when he was Governor in terms that evince slender sympathy with po- pular liberties. Nor ought it to be forgotten, that at the coin- menoement of the Caffre war he egregiously over-estimated his own influence with the chiefs and tribes, and as egregiously under-esti- mated their power for resistance ; as also, that his melodramatic mode of dealing with them warranted grave doubts of the solidity of his judgment. In his last despatch, Sir Harry takes a sanguine view of the progress of the British arms, and the discouragement of the hostile natives. His miscalculations at the outset of the war, however, deprive his opinions on those points pf much of the au- thority that would otherwise attach to them. The campaign has been expensive, and singularly inglorious. The operations recorded consist so exclusively of reciprocal captures of cattle by the British and the Caffres, as to resemble the old forays of moss- trooping borderers' rather than war as the word is generally under- stood. The Caffres appear to be retreating from what has hitherto been the theatre of hostilities; but there are other natural strong- holds behind them. It is said that they show a desire to nego- tiate; but they are notorious adepts in the art of gaining tune by negotiations.
