LATEST ARRANGEMENTS ON BEN A T,F OF THE CAFFRES.
" H. M. MreTsrEns have made arrangements for supplying H. M. Enemies at the Cape of Good Hope with Minis Rifles of the newest pattern. " H. M. Subjects continue to supply Caffres, Tambookies, and the public in general beyond the border, with Beeves and other stock, the produce of British settlements, as usual, on the most advantageous terms. " Hottentots lately resident within the Colony will find this a very good investment."
The foregoing might be the terms of an advertisement by the gentleman who has lately undertaken the management of affairs at the Cape of Good Hope. If it were needed ; but in point of fact the system for supplying arms, ammunition, and provisions to H. M. Enemies, is so complete that it advertises itself. Sir Harry Smith developed the Caffre war to respectable dimensions, but ac- cording to the most recent intelligence, it is now so largely ex- tended that it bids fair to be an established institution. We use the term " war " in the sense employed at the Cape, where it means a systematic opportunity for the Blacks to carry off property in the shape of reprisals, combined with a plan of furnishing them with the means of exercising their native skill in skirmishing with British weapons upon live British targets.
Sir Harry Smith's " victories," except for the honorary use of the term, had all the effect of defeats ; but under the new regime the disasters are emancipated from that disguise. They are not perhaps on so large a scale as the former " victories," but they appear to be quite as effective in mortality and moral influence. The last accounts mention several of these incidents. A body of fifty rebels attacked a missionary station, with a peculiar allow- ance of victory on the side of the British : seven men belonging to the station were killed, and ten were wounded ; there re- mained enough living to repel the assailants—to recapture the oxen of four waggons thrice, and so to win a considerable glory ; but the rebels, reinforced, succeeded in carrying off the cattle. Not content with the successes already attained, the Bri- tish pursued, kept up a running fight for three hours, killed and wounded many of the marauders ; but did not recover the cattle. Even this was not enough : a body of Lancers started in pursuit, and " swept the country ; but did not overtake the rebel foe." These achievements are quite in the Cape fashion. The capture of the Minis rifles was accomplished in an equally gallant manner by the British. The escort, no doubt experienced in Cape warfare, contrived so well to discover the ambush which was placed to in- tercept it, that numbers were destroyed by the murderous fire, and thirty-five rifles were captured : but it was the British that were destroyed, the Caffres and rebel Hottentots that captured the rifles. Unluckily, the rifles will not be so useful to the savages, since the nipples were sent by another conveyance, and the natives had not been taught the use of the new weapon. A proof of this was furnished very soon. An attempt was made by the British to recover the rifles, and a ball was received from one of the weapons fired by a native hand : the ball had been put in the wrong way, nevertheless it killed its man ; and "prac- tice makes iperfect." As to the nipples, since they are in British custody, they cannot be long in reaching their destination. It is said that the means by which the natives have received arms and ammunition from the British side has been detected, and a pro- clamation by the Governor threatens pain of death on discovery of the delinquents, under martial law : it is remarkable that, simul- taneously with this notice, H. M.'s troops become auxiliaries in the transit-trade of arms and ammunition between Great Britain and the Black races beyond the border. In time of peace, the settlers, both English and Anglo-Dutch, are much harassed by the depredations on their stock, in the de- fence of which occasionally they lose their lives. Under cover of this war for the defence of their property and persons, these de- predations have been developed and extended to an extraordinary degree, and the papers teem with accounts of fatal attacks on the persons of the settlers. Like protection in trade, this protective war seems to have the effect of stifling that which it professes to shield. The South African Commercial Advertiser winds up a summary of such achievements, in which the Caffres and other na- tive cavaliers maintain the high character of their border chivalry, by saying that " the details of assaults, robberies, murders, pursuits,
skirmishes, and personal exploits, in which colonists have been dis- tinguished actors or sufferers, would fill many more columns. Dis- order and danger, as well as actual war, have become familiar for fifty miles or more on both sides of a border line some hundred or hundred and fifty miles in length."
The last act of the Governor and Commander-in-chief was to proclaim, in a very formal manner, that he intended, on the sixth day of this instant August, to assemble a sufficient force to cross the Kei, and to establish his own head-quarters at "Krelli's great place," in order to inflict chastisement on that chief. General Cathcart exceeds Sir Harry Smith in the confidence, explicitness, and absolute force of his announcement ; insomuch that failure must be for him an impossibility. Sir Harry pledged himself to succeed, and was fain to seek an alternative in retirement, not al- together spontaneous. But, after the absolute and undoubting terms of the proclamation, no such alternative can be open to General Cathcart. We do not see what alternative can await him except victory or the immortality of Brutus ; unless, indeed, a further alternative were to be coming out at the Adelphi Theatre, like Thurtell's gig, as a real hero in the laughable and appalling drama of "the Caffre War."
Farce indeed of the most tragical kind is the character of this "little war"—little only in its spirit and conduct, great in its ex- tent and destructive consequences. The Ultra-Government organ at the Cape crowns the bitter wit of the whole affair by a new pro- position. The late Ministers proposed to suspend the representa- tive institutions until the war which their own Colonial Office had engendered should be terminated. On the remonstrance of the colo- nists, that abeyance has been in turn set aside ; but now, charging the success of the Anti-British, that is, of the Constitutional party, as the " cause " of the renewed Caffre war—arguing that the British are not fit for representation, because the territory is extensive, and there are savages living upon it or beyond it—the Cape Monitor gravely proposes, that her Ma- jesty's Ministers should at once announce their intention to dismiss the constitution until the conclusion of the war, or repeal it altogether ; for " those who are now so eager to grasp the power which that constitution will place within their reach persist in refusing to render any assistance in the defence of their coun- try." In other words, if the colonists do not come forward en- thusiastically to share in a war which they did not cause—which was provoked, against their advice and interest, by the peculiar colonizing crotchets of the Colonial Office—which has-been con- ducted so as to prevent success—which inflicts disgrace on all who share in it—they will be treated as unworthy to rank as British subjects, and will be deprived of the common constitutional pri- vileges to which all the denizens of the empire are understood to be born. This is the special, official, and Conservative view of the spirit which ought to dictate the policy of her Majesty's offi- cers in the Cape colony ; and in the mean time, to point out its moral, to adorn its future romance, and to furnish the "properties" for its drama, her Majesty's troops continue to aid in supplying her Majesty's enemies with arms, ammunition, and provisions.
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