In South Africa, confusion is becoming worse confounded. Sir Harry
Smith could no doubt beat the Caffres if they would fight him in his own way ; but that the obstinate savages will not do. Since the beginning of the troubles they have given way wherever the British troops appeared, to swarm back again the moment they marched on or were withdrawn. And now, leaving the Governor and Commander-in-chief to direct the evolutions of his soldiers in British Caffraria, they have crossed the frontier of the colony, filling every thicket and ravine with predatory bands, and carrying their marauding expeditions over all the Eastern dis- tricts. Bloodshed and plunder are the order of the day over half the colony and great part of Caffreland : in the work of killing most has been done by the English soldiers ; in the work of cattle. stealing the natives appear to have had the advantage. To the North of the Orange River, the English Resident, byinterfering in the quarrels of the natives, against the advice of Me settlers, has incurred a smart blow. The spirit of turbulence and strife is spread- ing rapidly from one to another tribe of the dusky races. Nor is the
t jr
temper of the White settlers of much better au y. The prompl-
gallon of Earl Grey's Instructions for crea , a Council of Six rekindled political anger. The subsequent intelligence of the dis- cussions in Parliament somewhat allayed that perilous mood; but only to break out with greater fierceness than ever, when Earl Grey's last scene in the House of Lords at the close of the session, is rehearsed at the Cape. Even as affairs stood at the time of the last despatches, the inimical and evasive conduct of the Imperial Government had paralyzed the efforts of the colonists in their own defence. The apathy, with which they were standing aloof from the struggle recalls to mind the legend of the crew of a British man- of-war, who revenged themselves upon a tyrannous captain by obeying his orders to lay their ship alongside of a French one, and then standing with folded arms at their quarters till they were shot down to a man.
