Meanwhile, the dead-set made by Germany, France, and Russia against British interests in the years 1883-85 had borne fruit in a way little expected by those Powers, but fully consonant with previous experience.  It awakened British statesmen from their apathy, and led them to adopt measures of unwonted vigour.  The year 1885 saw French plans in Indo-China checked by the annexation of Burmah.  German designs in South Africa undoubtedly quickened the resolve of the Gladstone Ministry to save Bechuanaland for the British Empire.

It is impossible here to launch upon the troublous sea of Boer politics, especially as the conflict naturally resulting from two irreconcilable sets of ideas outlasted the century with which this work is concerned.  We can therefore only state that filibustering bands of Boers had raided parts of Bechuanaland, and seemed about to close the trade-route northwards to the Zambesi.  This alone would have been a serious bar to the prosperity of Cape Colony; but the loyalists had lost their confidence in the British Government since the events of 1880, while a large party in the Cape Ministry, including at that time Mr. Cecil Rhodes, seemed willing to abet the Boers in all their proceedings.  A Boer deputation went to England in the autumn of 1883, and succeeded in cajoling Lord Derby into a very remarkable surrender.  Among other things, he conceded to them an important strip of land west of the River Harts[446].

[Footnote 446:  For the negotiations and the Convention of February 27, 1884, see Papers relating to the South African Republic, 1887.]

Far from satisfying them, this act encouraged some of their more restless spirits to set up two republics named Stellaland and Goshen.  There, however, they met a tough antagonist, John Mackenzie.  That devoted missionary, after long acquaintance with Boers and Bechuanas, saw how serious would be the loss to the native tribes and to the cause of civilisation if the raiders were allowed to hold the routes to the interior.  By degrees he aroused the sympathy of leading men in the Press, who thereupon began to whip up the laggards of Whitehall and Downing Street.  Consequently, Mackenzie, on his return to South Africa, was commissioned to act as British Resident in Bechuanaland, and in that capacity he declared that country to be under British protection (May 1884).  At once the Dutch throughout South Africa raised a hue and cry against him, in which Mr. Rhodes joined, with the result that he was recalled on July 30.

His place was taken by a statesman whose exploits raised him to a high place among builders of the Empire.  However much Cecil Rhodes differed from Mackenzie on the native question and other affairs, he came to see the urgent need of saving for the Empire the central districts which, as an old Boer said, formed “the key of Africa.”  Never were the loyalists more dispirited at the lack of energy shown by the Home Government; and never was there greater need