It will thus be seen that Shepstone's two chief reasons for the Annexation were devoid of foundation.
It was naturally difficult for the Secretary of State to justify his instructions that the Annexation of the Transvaal was only to take place in case a majority of the inhabitants favoured such a course, in face of the fact that 6,800 out of 8,000 burghers had protested against it.
But both Shepstone and Lord Carnarvon declared without a shadow of proof that the signatures of the protesting petitions were obtained under threats of violence. The case, indeed, was exactly the reverse. When the meeting was held at Pretoria to sign this petition, Shepstone caused the cannons to be pointed at the assemblage. As if this were not enough, he issued a menacing proclamation against the signing of the petition.
When these pretexts were thus disposed of, they relied on the fact that the Annexation was a _fait accompli_.
Delegates were sent to England to protest against the Annexation, but Lord Carnarvon told them that he would only be misleading them if he held out any hope of restitution. Gladstone afterwards endorsed this by saying that he could not advise the Queen to withdraw her Sovereignty from the Transvaal.
When it was represented that the Annexation was a deliberate breach of the Sand River Convention, Sir Bartle Frere replied, in 1879, that if they wished to go back to the Sand River Convention, they might just as well go back to the Creation!
It is necessary here not to lose sight of the fact that the ground, which according to the Keate award in 1870 had been declared to lie beyond the borders of the Republic, was now included by Shepstone as being a part of the Transvaal.
There were, however, other matters which under Republican administration were branded as wrong, but which under English rule were perfectly right. In the Secoecoeni War under the Republic the British High Commissioner had protested against the use of the Swazies and Volunteers by the Republic in conducting the campaign.
Under British administration the war was carried on at first by regulars only, but when these were defeated by the Kaffirs, an army of Swazies, as well as Volunteers, was collected. The number of the former can be gathered from the fact that 500 Swazies were killed. The atrocities committed by these Swazi allies of the English on the people of Secoecoeni's tribe were truly awful.