“Never,” he wrote a few weeks afterwards, “never did a man of letters volunteer into a more extraordinary position than that in which I find myself.”  Sir Garnet Wolseley stood by him through thick and thin.  After Sir Garnet’s departure he had no English friend.  His local supporters were “all looking out for themselves,” and there was not one among them in whom he could feel any real confidence.”

—­ * The present Lord Wolseley. + A favourite expression with Mrs. Carlyle. —­

Of Molteno he made no personal complaint, and he always considered him the fittest man for his post in South Africa.  But Colonial politicians as a whole were “not gentlemen with whom it was agreeable to be forced into contact.”  To give the Colony responsible government has been “an act of deliberate insanity” on the part of Lord Kimberley and the Liberal Cabinet.  Froude endeavoured loyally and faithfully to carry out the policy of the Colonial Office, and his relations with Lord Carnarvon were relations of unbroken confidence.  His objects were purely unselfish and patriotic.  It was his misfortune rather than his fault to become involved in local politics, from which it was essential for the success of his mission that he should keep entirely aloof.  Circumstances brought him into much greater favour with the Dutch than with his own countrymen, for it was thought, not without reason, that he had brought Carnarvon round to see the truth about the Diamond Fields and the Free State.  He made them speeches, and they received him with enthusiasm.  With Molteno, on the other hand, he found it impossible to act, and the Governor supported Molteno.  Barkly was not unfavourable to Federation.  But he perceived that it could not be forced upon a self-governing Colony, and that he himself would be powerless unless he acted in harmony with his constitutional advisers.  He, as well as Molteno, refused to attend the dinner at which Froude on his arrival was entertained in Cape Town.  Molteno advised Froude not to go, or if he went, not to speak.  Froude, however, both went and spoke, claiming as an Englishman the right of free speech in a British Colony.  The right was of course incontestable.  The expediency was a very different matter.  Froude was not accustomed to public speaking, and only long experience can teach that most difficult part of the process, the instinctive avoidance of what should not be said.  His brilliant lectures were all read from manuscript, and he had never been in the habit of thinking on his legs.  In 1874 he could at least say that he spoke only for himself.  In 1875 he committed the Colonial Office, and even the Cabinet, to his own personal opinions, which were not in favour of Parliamentary Government as understood either by Englishmen or by Africanders.  He was accused of getting up a popular agitation on behalf of the Imperial authorities against the Governor of the Colony, his Ministers, and the Legislative Assembly of the Cape.  He did in fact, under a strong sense of duty, urge Carnarvon to recall Barkly, and to substitute for him Sir Garnet Wolseley, who had temporarily taken over the administration of Natal.