It is difficult, perhaps impossible, to estimate exactly the atti-
tude of the Boers of the Transvaal, but the facts known justify Sir Bartle Frere's apprehensions. They have remained hitherto neutral between Cetewayo and the British, even restoring Cetewayo's captured cattle ; and their agent, Mr. Joubert, has expressed to the High Commissioner, in a personal interview, the unanimous determination of his countrymen to regain their independence. It is improbable that they will actually rise in
insurrection, but they have called a Parliament for February 17th, and may decide, as they did before, on a universal and simultaneous emigration, either to a still more northerly dis- trict, of which the English know nothing, or more probably into the Orange River Free State, where they would strengthen President Brand's hands to keep his country independent. Their motives are, we believe, partly Dutch feeling, partly a resolution to govern the natives as they please, and partly, in about a third of their number, a fanatical belief that they are a chosen people, destined by Heaven to set up some kind of New Jerusalem in South Africa.
