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QUARTERLY REVIEW.

ART. I.-DR. THEAL ON SOUTH AFRICAN HISTORY. 1. Records of the Cape Colony, copied for the Cape Government from the Manuscript Documents in the Public Record Office, London. By G. McCall Theal, LL.D., Colonial Historiographer. Vols. I-V: 1795-1806. Printed for the Cape Government, 1897-1899.

2. A History of South Africa. By G. McCall Theal. Vols. I-IV. London: Sonnenschein, 1883–1897.

3. Compendium of the History and Geography of South Africa. By G. McCall Theal. Third edition, revised and enlarged. Lovedale Mission, S. A.; and London: Stanford, 1878. 4. Paul Kruger en de Opkomst der Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek. By J. F. Van Oordt. Amsterdam: Dusseau, 1898.

5. Paul Kruger and His Times. By F. Reginald Statham. London: Fisher Unwin, 1898.

6. The History of the Great Boer Trek. By the late Hon. Henry Cloete, LL.D. Third edition. London: John Murray, 1899.

AMIDST the turmoil of a foreign and civil war, the veteran historiographer of our distressful colony has been at work among the London archives, preparing the authentic texts of volume upon volume of the records of old colonial history. We are reluctant to appear ungrateful for the prodigious industry to which we owe the mass of information that is now before us. To transcribe, collate, and edit, with many needful translations, and finally to epitomise and index, single-handed, nine volumes, containing nearly five thousand pages, of State Paper texts, within the space of thirty months, is a remarkable feat. It is to be regretted, however, that the results of this magnificent undertaking were not available before the publication of the last edition of Dr. Theal's great work, in which certain English writers and our Continental crities generally are Vol. 192.-No. 383.

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able to find a justification of their undisguised sympathy with the cause of the Dutch settlers in South Africa.

We are ready to admit that the political influence of the historian is not a circumstance for which he can be held personally accountable. Dr. Theal's historical method, his abundant references to original documents, his repudiation of the personal opinions of earlier writers, and the judicial gravity of his literary style, have naturally made his 'History' the first authority upon all questions relating to the early polity of the English and Dutch settlements in South Africa. If the conclusions which must be drawn from the historian's impartial narrative are favourable or unfavourable to the contentions of one side or the other in the latest struggle for Imperial supremacy, that, it may be argued, is no concern of his. We may grant the argument, but we must add the stipulation that this presumption of the completeness, the accuracy, and the impartiality of the historian's work shall be well founded.

It must be observed, however, that at the time when the first edition of Dr. Theal's History' appeared, the documentary materials from which it was derived were not the only sources available; and, more than this, that however admirable and unique their position amongst colonial archives, they did not even constitute the most complete or authentic collection, at least for the earlier history of the British occupation. It would, perhaps, be scarcely fair to ask why Dr. Theal did not from the first make use of the evidence of these London archives side by side with the muniments at Cape Town; but it is clearly necessary to distinguish between the authority of Dr. Theal's work and that of the actual records, which he apparently failed to exhaust for the purpose of that work. quote Dr. Theal's 'History' is one thing; to cite the authority of the records, upon which it is generally supposed to be based, is possibly another matter altogether.

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Dr. Theal has had an opportunity of expressing his opinion upon the evidence of these London records, of which he has not availed himself. In the last published volume of his edition of the 'Records' there appears what is described by the editor as a 'Digest of all the documents in the Public Record Office, London, and in the archives of the Cape Colony, from 1795 to 1806.' Strange to say, the reader will not find a 'digest of any documents at all. Dr. Theal's digest' is in fact nothing more than a historical introduction of one hundred and fifty pages, which not only does not refer to the documents specifically, but probably does not take notice of more than a tenth part of the actual contents of these archives,

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