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Updated: May 10, 2025
Further on he says: "In justice to Shepstone I must say that I would not consider an officer of my Government to have acted faithfully if he had not done what Shepstone did."
During the last months of 1877 and the first part of 1878 agitation against British rule went on unchecked, and at last grew to alarming proportions, so much so that Sir T. Shepstone, on his return from the Zulu border in March 1878, where he had been for some months discussing the vexed and dangerous question of the boundary line with the Zulus, found it necessary to issue a stringent proclamation warning the agitators that their proceedings and meetings were illegal, and would be punished according to law.
He dwelt strongly upon the danger of allowing and encouraging natives to procure arms in Griqualand West as an enticement to work for the diamond owners. The secret designs of Sir Theophilus Shepstone he did not penetrate, and therefore he was unprepared for the next development in the South African drama.
This fact, namely, that at the bidding of his old mentor Sir T. Shepstone, Cetywayo abandoned his long-cherished plans, and his undoubted opportunity of paying off old scores with the Boers in a most effectual manner, and gave up a policy that had so many charms for him, must be held by every unprejudiced man to speak volumes in his favour.
On his release, he requested the Administrator to publish a Government notice declaring him innocent of the charges brought against him. This Sir T. Shepstone declined to do, and so, to use his own words, in a despatch to the High Commissioner on the subject, Captain Gunn of Gunn at once became "what in this country is called a patriot."
On one occasion Sir Theophilus, then Mr. Shepstone, went so far as to offer to personally draw off a large portion of the native population, and settle them on some vacant territory bordering on the Cape Colony, but the suggestion was not acceded to, for fear lest the execution of the scheme should excite disturbances amongst the natives of the Cape.
Cetywayo played for his own hand all along, and received neither commands nor hints from the Special Commissioner to get his army together. Indeed, when Sir T. Shepstone discovered what was going on, he suffered great anxiety lest some catastrophe should occur before he was in a position to prevent it.
The message ended with a request that Mr. Shepstone, as Cetywayo's "father," should come and instal him on the throne. A month or two afterwards there came another message, again requesting his attendance; and on the request being refused by the Lieutenant-Governor of Natal, there came a third message, to which the Natal Government returned a favourable answer. Accordingly Mr.
The formal document of agreement between Her Majesty's Government and the Boer leaders, known as the Convention of 1881, was signed by both parties at Pretoria on the afternoon of the 3rd August, in the same room in which, nearly four years before, the Annexation Proclamation was signed by Sir T. Shepstone.
Then I remembered that, owing to a queer native custom, such as that which caused Sir Theophilus Shepstone, whom I used to know very well, to be recognised as the holder of the spirit of the great Chaka and therefore as the equal of the Zulu monarchs, Brother John was the really important man in our company.
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