Sir T. Shepstone also wrote, concerning the reality of the danger, under date December 25: 

The Boers are still flying, and I think by this time there must be a belt of more than a hundred miles long and thirty broad, in which, with three insignificant exceptions, there is nothing but absolute desolation.  This will give your Excellency some idea of the mischief which Cetewayo’s conduct has caused.

And again (April 30, 1878): 

I find that Secocoeni acts as a kind of lieutenant to Cetewayo.  He received directions from the Zulu King, and these directions are by Secocoeni issued to the various Basuto tribes in the Transvaal.

Sir T. Shepstone rushed the annexation.  He plucked the fruit that would have fallen.  He himself has said that he might have waited until the Zulus actually made their threatened murderous raid.  That might have been Macchiavelian statecraft, but it would not have been humanity; and there was nothing in the attitude of the Boer leaders at the time of the annexation which foreshadowed the fierce and determined opposition which afterwards developed.  The fact seems to be that the people of the Transvaal were either in favour of the annexation, or were overpowered and dazed by the hopelessness of the Republic’s outlook; and they passively assented to the action of Sir Theophilus Shepstone and his twenty-five policemen.  The Boers were quite unable to pay the taxes necessary to self-government and the prosecution of the Kaffir wars.  The Treasury was empty—­save for the much-quoted 12s. 6d.  The Government L1 bluebacks were selling at 1s.  Civil servants’ salaries were months in arrear.  The President himself—­the excitable, unstable, visionary, but truly enlightened and patriotic Burgers—­had not only drawn no salary, but had expended his private fortune, and incurred a very heavy liability, in the prosecution of the unsuccessful Secocoeni war.  No amount of ex post facto evidence as to the supposed feelings and opinions of the Boers can alter a single one of the very serious facts which, taken together, seemed to Sir Theophilus to justify the annexation.  But it all comes down to this:  If the passive acquiescence in the annexation coincided strangely with the Republic’s failure to defeat its enemies and pay its debts, it is no whit less odd that Lord Carnarvon’s anxiety for the Republic’s safety synchronized with his attempt to confederate South Africa.

The real mistakes of the British Government began after the annexation.  The failure to fulfil promises; the deviation from old ways of government; the appointment of unsuitable officials, who did not understand the people or their language; the neglect to convene the Volksraad or to hold fresh elections, as definitely promised; the establishment of personal rule by military men, who treated the Boers with harshness and contempt, and would make no allowance for their simple, old-fashioned ways, their deep-seated prejudices, and, if you like, their stupid opposition to modern ideas:  these things and others caused great dissatisfaction, and gave ample material for the nucleus of irreconcilables to work with.