No sooner had Froude landed at Cape Town than he began tracing all its evils to responsible government.  The solidity of the houses reminded him that they were built under an absolute system.  “What is it which has sent our Colonies into so sudden a frenzy for what they call political liberty?” A movement which has been in steady progress for thirty years can scarcely be called sudden, even though it be regarded as a frenzy, and so far back as 1776 there were British colonists beyond the seas who attached some practical value to freedom.  A drive across the peninsula of Table Mountain suggested equally positive reflections of another kind.  “Were England wise in her generation, a line of forts from Table Bay to False Bay would be the northern limit of her Imperial responsibilities.”

This had been the cherished policy of Lord Grey at the Colonial Office, and the Whigs generally inclined to the same view.  But it was already obsolete.  Lord Kimberley had proceeded on exactly the opposite principle, and Lord Carnarvon’s object in Federation was certainly not to diminish the area of the British Empire.

If Froude talked in South Africa as he wrote in his journal, his conversation must have been more interesting than discreet.  “Every one,” he wrote from Port Elizabeth, on the 27th of September, 1874, “approves of the action of the Natal Government in the Langalibalele affair.  I am told that if Natal is irritated it may petition to relinquish the British connection, and to be allowed to join the Free States.  I cannot but think that it would have been a wise policy, when the Free States were thrown off, to have attached Natal to them.”  Lord Carnarvon disapproved of the Natal Government’s action, released Langalibalele, and recalled the Lieutenant-Governor.  His policy was as wise as it was courageous, and no proposal to relinquish the British connection followed.  Froude was a firm believer in the Dutch method of dealing with Kaffirs, and he had no more prejudice against slavery than Carlyle himself.  But his sense of justice was offended by the treatment of Langalibalele, and if he had been Secretary of State he would have done as Lord Carnarvon did.  With the Boers Froude had a good deal of sympathy.  Their religion, a purer Calvinism than existed even in Scotland, appealed to his deepest sentiments, and he admired the austere simplicity of their lives.  No one could accuse a Cape Dutchman of complicity in such horrors as progress and the march of intellect.  On his way from Cape Town to Durban Froude was told a characteristic story of a Dutch farmer.  “His estate adjoined the Diamond Fields.  Had he remained where he was, he could have made a large fortune.  Milk, butter, poultry, eggs, vegetables, fruit, went up to fabulous prices.  The market was his own to demand what he pleased.  But he was disgusted at the intrusion upon his solitude.  The diggers worried him from morning to night, demanding to buy, while he required his farm produce for his own family.