We shall by and by have occasion to note some striking examples of omission, which render the 'Digest' nearly valueless to the historical student. We can only conjecture that the editor's original intention was to expand the Tables of Contents which he has prefixed to these volumes of London 'Records' by incorporating with them a catalogue of the principal documents to be found at Cape Town. We venture to wish, for more than one reason, that this course had been adopted. For one thing, we should have been spared the uncomfortable impression that this epitome of the 'Records' is little more than a 'digest' of Dr. Theal's own History,' without any correction or modification of facts or statements which, as we shall presently see, are not wholly warranted by these authentic documents. In almost every paragraph we are able to recognise the actual words of the History,' and everywhere the conclusions of the 'History' have been closely followed, without any indication whatever that the purely personal opinions expressed in that 'History' are intended to reproduce the evidence of the Colonial records preserved at Cape Town.

We must further remark that, while an editor is entitled to found upon the records any opinion which seems to him legitimate, and to express that opinion in any form that is consistent with literary propriety, he is not entitled to read into the text of historical documents conclusions which are not found in the originals and which do not appear to be justified by the context. As an instance in point we may take the entry in Dr. Theal's index, under the heading Conquest of the Cape Colony by Great Britain in 1795,' which refers to the Stadtholder's letter requiring the Dutch Governor to place himself under the orders of the English commanders. Of this letter we read that it makes little impression, owing to its having been written in England'; but no such statement will be found in the text, although it will be found in Dr. Theal's History of South Africa.'

Now the use of an index, we submit, is to point to actual statements in the text, and therefore an imaginary statement interpolated in an index-entry really amounts to tampering with the text. Moreover, further examination of the 'Records shows us that the letter in question was received with the greatest unconcern' by the Dutch Governor--just as he received every other communication of the English commander, 'with uncommon sang-froid.'

Unfortunately this uncharitable insinuation is not a solitary instance of Dr. Theal's unfair interpretation of the actual records. Elsewhere he has found space for a long and minute

description of the naval mutiny at the Cape-which inevitably followed the outbreak at the Nore in 1797, and had no sort of influence upon colonial history-in order to draw a grotesque comparison, in the manner of Dr. Leyds, between the treatment of British sailors by their officers and that of the Hottentot servants by their Boer employers. When we find page after page filled with the irrelevant details of this mutiny, introduced for no other apparent reason than to damage the British case, we may fairly ask why, if the Admiralty records are to be pressed into the service of colonial history, the War Office despatches of the same period should have been wholly neglected. Amongst the latter there may be found several remarkable papers relative to the proposed expedition from the Cape, in this same year, 1797, against the Spanish possessions in South America, including the secret instructions of the Ministry to General Craik, the acting Governor. The incident is one of no small historical interest, in connexion with the failure of the later expedition of 1806-7, and has a great deal more to do with South African history than the naval mutiny. Yet Dr. Theal, intent upon the disparagement of the British régime in connexion with the mutiny, has entirely neglected these important despatches, which, as the Government Historiographer, he might have been expected to notice and describe. If Dr. Theal was not prepared to modify the views expressed in his 'History' in consideration of the evidence of these London records, we cannot help wishing that, instead of reproducing those views in a more aggressive shape in the introduction to his official edition of those records, he had been content with making his discoveries as complete as possible. We can scarcely believe that the interests of historical truth are likely to be advanced by the omission of material facts or by spiteful suggestions of unworthy motives, even at the expense, in the cause of impartiality, of the historian's own countrymen.

But if such methods of dealing with documents are calculated to shake our confidence in Dr. Theal's statements, an examination of his consistency will not induce us to place much trust in his historical judgment. Few of those who have been content to base their historical and political conclusions upon the uncompromising statements which abound in Dr. Theal's "History of South Africa' are likely to be aware that in the first draft of that History,' published before the outbreak of the political disturbances which have divided the Cape Colony into two hostile camps, the same author expressed diametrically opposite opinions upon almost all the

vexed questions of South African history. Such, however, is the case. In his Compendium of the History and Geography of South Africa,' of which a new and revised edition was published in 1878, Dr. Theal goes far beyond the stoutest modern apologist of the British case, and surpasses in the severity of his censure the sternest critic of the Dutch régime in South Africa. Even the apostasy of Mr. Cronwright Schreiner is not more startling than that of Dr. Theal. We do not wish to seek, and still less to suggest, a reason for Dr. Theal's conversion to the Afrikander cause, but we may at least insist that the opinions of a historian, who is able to read the bulk of the evidence before him in two wholly different ways. within the space of a few years, should be accepted with some reserve. In the preface to the first edition of his Compendium Dr. Theal assures us that 'free use has been made of any and every source of information that could be considered authentic.' It is true that since 1878 he has engaged in further researches and that he has pointed out this fact in a note upon the 'Compendium' which appears in the bibliography appended to the History of South Africa.' But, as we propose to show in the present article, the evidence of the colonial records and that of the still more authentic collection in the London archives do not by any means justify the author's altered conception of the history of South Africa. What, then, is the reason, we may fairly ask, for so astonishing a change of view?

The process of confronting Dr. Theal with his earlier self, and with his own original authorities, at several momentous epochs of South African history, is one earnestly to be recommended to the careful attention of those upon whom will rest in future the responsibility for the implicit acceptance of these fallacious conclusions. The modern school of writers upon South African history may be said to have been founded and maintained by Dr. Theal. It is interesting to trace the influence of his later writings, not only in the innumerable contributions to periodical literature which have recently appeared in our own country and abroad, but also in several works of a more important character. One of the best-known of these is the official History of the South African Republic,' recently compiled by Mr. Van Oordt. This writer follows Dr. Theal's conclusions without the slightest attempt at original investigation. He differs only from his author in the choice of a style more suitable to the taste of the ignorant and prejudiced audience to whom his book is addressed. A work on the same lines has been published still more recently in this country by Mr. Reginald Statham, with the title of Paul Kruger and his Times,' in the preface

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to which the author most gratefully acknowledges his indebtedness to Dr. G. M. Theal, who has kindly supplied the key to the true history of various matters connected with the South African Republic.'

We shall presently have occasion to take a glance into the store-house of historical facts which Dr. Theal has thrown open for the special consumption of writers like Mr. Statham and Mr. Reitz, who, in his Century of Wrong,' furnishes, with the earnest assistance of Mr. Stead, the most recent and flagrant example of the unintelligent and partial citation of historical records to suit the purposes of political agitation.

As we should have expected, a comparatively small proportion of the voluminous texts of the colonial records prepared by Dr. Theal are found to bear directly upon the political problems which interest us to-day. Trade returns, official promotions, and the still more trivial scraps of news which Ġovernment House seems in all times to have thought necessary to transmit to Whitehall, occupy many hundred pages of this collection. Besides this routine business, however, we find a good deal of instructive and suggestive material in the Governors' despatches and their enclosures. In the first place, we can ascertain with absolute precision the character of British colonial policy during the whole period of the successive conquests and the final occupation of the Dutch settlement. Secondly, we can estimate the corresponding sentiments of the settlers towards their new protectors, and we can trace the local growth of their national disaffection. Thirdly, we may find some remarkable evidence relating to the earliest phases of the native question.

The records printed in the first volume of this collection cover the period of the British preparations for the occupation of the Cape in the year 1795. These records are by no means exhaustive; but Dr. Theal has given the texts of the most important documents which relate to the negotiations on this subject between the States-General and the English Government from 1793 to 1795.

Already the allegiance of the Dutch colonists to their mother country had begun to sit lightly on their consciences. Immediately after his arrival at the Cape, the English commander. reported that by far the most numerous party' amongst the inhabitants was decidedly adverse to their present government, and, as it should seem, as little attached to the mother-country,' and that these Boors' have adopted the chimerical idea of existing by themselves as an independent State. Nominally this party was attached to the French interest; but with the appearance of the English on the scene it was content to await

the course of events, while the merchants and officials of the Dutch East India Company were naturally anxious to maintain at least a nominal allegiance to the House of Orange, upon which their own power and privileges depended.

It was soon apparent that the English had no intention of subverting their liberties, of seizing their property, or of transporting them as convicts to New Holland. On the contrary, the settlers found themselves, for the first time, assured of absolute protection, of equal justice (so far as it could be obtained under their own laws), of religious toleration, and of free trade, in place of the misgovernment of the corrupt oligarchy which was fast completing the ruin of the country.

We do not propose to discuss the legality or justice of the British occupation of the Dutch Cape Colony in the year 1795. Such an occupation, even if it is to be regarded as a conquest, was fully justified by the relations which had been established between France and Holland. Dr. Theal sneers at this view; but he reserves the full weight of his displeasure for those who venture to believe that the Dutch people of South Africa were so impressed by the benefits they had received as to be more than willing to abandon their connexion with the Netherlands and become British subjects.'

By way of controverting this monstrous proposition, Dr. Theal has summarised the results of British rule in South Africa during the first period of occupation in a characteristic passage:

'In the colony itself the effect of the English administration was almost imperceptible. . . . To produce an effect there must be a cause. Setting aside the few individuals within the official circle, what cause had the South African colonists in 1803 for attachment to Great Britain? They had not gained under her rule in freedom of speech, in freedom of movement, or to any great extent in freedom of trade. . ... With a very large part of the country lying waste from the devastations of barbarian intruders . . . no one could say in truth that they had gained in protection. . . . A so-called senate. . . was a gain, but its power was extremely limited. That, the reform in the method of paying civil servants, relief from the irritating auction tax,. . . and the abolition of a few monopolies . . . surely did not form sufficient cause to turn the affections of the people from their own mother-country to another land where sympathy with them was entirely wanting.' ('Digest,' pp. 100-1.)

We have quoted Dr. Theal's summary of the negative

*Digest,' p. 100.