It was not till 1878, when all differences with the Free State had been settled, and the Transvaal was a British possession, that Griqualand West became an integral part of Cape Colony.  In January, 1876, Brand was still asking for arbitration, and Carnarvon was still refusing it.

When he explained the Colonial Secretary’s policy to the Colonial Secretary himself Froude came very near explaining it away.  The Conference, he said, was only intended to deal with the native question and the question of Griqualand.  Was Confederation then a dream?  Froude himself, in a private letter to Molteno, dated April 29th, 1875, wrote, “Lord Carnarvon’s earnest desire since he came into office has been if possible to form South Africa into a confederate dominion, with complete internal self-government."* That was the whole object of the Conference, which but for that would never have been proposed.  That, as Froude truly says in his Report, was one of Molteno’s reasons for resisting it.  The Cape Premier thought that South Africa was not ripe for Confederation.  If Froude had had more practice in drawing up official documents, he would probably have left out this deprecatory argument, which does not agree with the rest of his case.  He attributes, for instance, to local politicians a dread that the supremacy of Cape Town would be endangered.  But no possible treatment of the natives, or of Griqualand West, would have endangered the supremacy of Cape Town.  The Confederation of which Froude and Carnarvon were champions would have avoided tremendous calamities if it could have been carried out.  The chief difficulties in its way were Colonial jealousy of interference from Downing Street and Dutch exasperation at the seizure of the Diamond Fields.  “You have trampled on those poor States, sir,” said a member of the Cape Legislature to Froude, “till the country cries shame upon you, and you come now to us to assist you in your tyranny; we will not do it, sir.  We are astonished that you should dare to ask us.”  Such language was singularly inappropriate to Froude himself, for the Boers never had a warmer advocate than they had in him.  But the circumstances in which Griqualand West were annexed will excuse a good deal of strong language.  At Port Elizabeth and Grahamstown Froude was welcomed as an advocate of their local independence, which was what they most desired.  When, with unusual prudence, he declined to take part in a separatist campaign, their zeal for Confederation soon cooled.  On the other hand, the Dutch papers all supported the Conference, although Brand refused to lay his case before it, or to treat with any authority except the British Government at home.

—­ * Life of Molteno, vol. i. p. 337. —­