SIR BARTLE FRERE'S PAMPHLET.
[TO THE EDITOR OP THE "SPECTATOR.")
Sut,—I have read with great interest your article on Sir Bartle Frere's pamphlet, and especially that portion of it in which you comment on his extraordinary statement that "it was not we who made war on Cetywayo, but he who made war on us." You naturally characterise this as an "astounding assertion," seeing that Cetywayo had no more to do with what Sir Bartle calls "the two armed violations of British territory by armed bands," than the ex-High Commissioner himself. The capture and killing by Sirayo's sons of that chief's two fugitive wives who had committed adultery—a crime punishable among the Zulus with death—were wholly unknown, either to Cetywayo or to the aggrieved husband, until after these occurrences had taken place. Cetywayo, in the letter which he wrote to Sir Hercules Robinson on March 29th last, states that Sirayo was with him in the lower part of Zululand when his sons com- mitted the rash act. You say, "For this offence Cetywayo apologised, and offered what, according to Zulu custom, he considered an ample atonement." This is perfectly true. He was anxious to get off by paying a fine in cattle ; and he might well be excused for supposing that we should abstain from pushing matters with him to extremities, seeing that Sir Henry Balwer, the Lieutenant-Governor of Natal, did not actually " demand" the surrender of Sirayo's sons, but was careful to use a much less peremptory word, for in each of the two messages On the subject which he sent to Cetywayo he merely "requests" him to give up the offenders. The ex-King's narrative shows that he found it very difficult to realise the fact that the English in- tended, after all, to refuse the fine, and to insist upon his sur- rendering "the two boys." His answers to Sir Henry Bulwer were most respectful, as will be seen from the account which the bearers of the first message gave of their interview with him. " Cetywayo, " they say,— " Spoke to us; he was kind; he said he did not wish to quarrel
with the English, he wished to live to be an old man, like his father before him. Be said he had spoken to Sirayo's sons about entering this colony—that they had done wrong, but that he was glad to find that they had hurt no one belonging to the English. He went on to say that they had done this without his knowledge, and that it was not right, but admitted that, were a similar force to cross from Natal into Zulu country, and do as they had done, blood would have been spilt, and added that the white man's law was better than the Zulu in this respect. Be said that the request of the Government, that the leaders of the parties that had entered Natal in pursuit of the women be handed over to the Natal Government, to be tried and punished by the laws of Natal, would be laid before the great men of the Zulu people, to be decided upon by them,—that he could not do it alone."
The temper of mind which this message discloses makes it manifest that at this stage of the quarrel war might easily have been averted. It is worthy of remark that even after our troops had crossed the border, Cetywayo made an effort, on his own responsibility, to capture Sirayo's sons. He sent a number of men to Sirayo's kraal to seize them, but they fled, and ulti- mately succeeded in obtaining shelter in the stronghold of a chief who resided in a remote part of Zululand.
Some of your readers might infer, from the vehement lan- guage in which Sir Bartle Frere has always written about this affair, that we had never lost an opportunity of impressing the Zulus with a wholesome sense of our respect for the right of asylum, and of our horror of their cruel ways. It is hardly credible, but it is, nevertheless, a fact, that up to a recent period it was the practice of the British Authorities in Natal to restore refugee women from Zululand to the Zulus. The lamented Colonel Durnford once saw an order to this effect sus- pended in the magistrate's office at Stanger, and Chief John Dunn also throws light on the practice. "There formerly sub- sisted," he says, "an arrangement by which women and cattle were both reckoned as property, and when they crossed the river in either direction, it was customary to send them back. Latterly, as far as women were concerned, the understanding has not been carried out." One magistrate in particular is known to have returned a large number of refugee women, many of whom were, no doubt, severely punished for having violated the laws of Zululand. Could anything more forcibly exhibit the gross inconsistency of our conduct towards the Zulus ? And how was it possible that Cetywayo could for one moment believe that we were sincere in putting forward as a ground of war our determination to uphold the sanctity of asylum in Natal ?
I cannot conclude this letter without calling your attention to the fact that only a few months before the raid of Sirayo's sons, Cetywayo had given us a most remarkable proof of his desire to be on friendly terms with us. A Zulu named Jolwana killed a white man in Zululand, and Cetywayo, unsolicited, sent him to Natal, in order that he might receive the punishment due to his crime. Sir Henry Bulwer sent the man back, on the ground that the courts of law in Natal had no jurisdiction, and that if tried at all, he must be tried by Cetywayo. The man was delivered to the Zulu authorities in March, 1877, and on April 10th Cetywayo sent a message informing the Lieutenant. Governor that, as the white people were his fathers, the Zulu who had killed one of them must die, and therefore he had caused Jolwana to be put to death. This was the spontaneous act of the man whose country we have devastated and ruined, and who, in his captivity, appeals for justice to the British
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