In reference to St. Lucia Bay our narrative must be shadowy in outline owing to the almost complete secrecy with which the German Government wisely shrouds a failure.  The officials and newspaper writers of Germany have not yet contracted the English habit of proclaiming their intentions beforehand and of parading before the world their recriminations in case of a fiasco.  All that can be said, then, with certainty is that in the autumn of 1884 a German trader named Einwold attempted to gain a footing in St. Lucia Bay and to prepare the way for the recognition of German claims if all went well.  In fact, he could either be greeted as a Mehrer des Reichs, or be disowned as an unauthorised busybody.

We may here cite passages from the Diary of Dr. Busch, Bismarck’s secretary, which prove that the State took a lively interest in Einwold’s adventure.  On February 25, 1885, Busch had a conversation with Herr Andrae, in the course of which they “rejoiced at England’s difficulties in the Sudan, and I expressed the hope that Wolseley’s head would soon arrive in Cairo, nicely pickled and packed.”  Busch then referred to British friction with Russia in Afghanistan and with France in Burmah, and then put the question to Andrae, “’Have we given up South Africa; or is the Lucia Bay affair still open?’ He said that the matter was still under consideration[442].”

[Footnote 442:  Bismarck:  Some Secret Pages of his History, vol. iii. p. 132.]

It has since transpired that the British Government might have yielded to pressure from Berlin, had not greater pressure been exercised from Natal and from British merchants and shipowners interested in the South African trade.  Sir Donald Currie, in the paper already referred to, stated that he could easily have given particulars of the means which had to be used in order to spur on the British Government to decisive action.  Unfortunately he was discreetly reticent, and merely stated that not only St. Lucia Bay, but the whole of the coast between Natal and the Delagoa Bay district was then in question, and that the Gladstone Ministry was finally induced to telegraph instructions to Cape Town for the despatch of a cruiser to assert British claims to St. Lucia Bay.  H.M.S. Goshawk at once steamed thither, and hoisted the British flag, by virtue of a treaty made with a Zulu chief in 1842.  Then ensued the usual interchange of angry notes between Berlin and London; Bismarck and Count Herbert sought to win over, or browbeat, Lord Rosebery, then Colonial Minister.  In this, however, he failed; and the explanation of the failure given to Busch was that Lord Rosebery was too clever for him and “quite mesmerised him.”  On May 7, 1885, Germany gave up her claims to that important position, in consideration of gaining at the expense of England in the Cameroons[443].  Here again a passage from Busch’s record deserves quotation.  In a conversation which he had with Bismarck on January 5, 1886, he put the question:—­