Even before any official decision could have been arrived at in this matter, fate had provided him with another destination.
Two passages have already been cited, showing the overtures first made by the Cape Government, and then by Gordon himself, for his employment in South Africa. Nothing came of those communications. On 23rd February 1882, when an announcement was made by myself that Gordon would vacate his command in a few weeks' time, the Cape Government again expressed its desire to obtain the use of his services, and moreover recollected the telegram to which no reply had been sent. Sir Hercules Robinson, then Governor of the Cape, sent the following telegram to the Colonial Secretary, the Earl of Kimberley: —
"Ministers request me to inquire whether H.M.'s Government would permit them to obtain the services of Colonel Charles Gordon. Ministers desire to invite Colonel Gordon to come to this Colony for the purpose of consultation as to the best measures to be adopted with reference to Basutoland, in the event of Parliament sanctioning their proposals as to that territory, and to engage his services, should he be willing to renew the offer made to their predecessors in April 1881, to assist in terminating the war and administering Basutoland."
Lord Kimberley then sent instructions by telegraph to Durban, and thence by steamer, sanctioning Gordon's employment and his immediate departure from the Mauritius. The increasing urgency of the Basuto question induced the Cape Government to send a message by telegraph to Aden, and thence by steamer direct to Gordon. In this message they stated that "the services of some one of proved ability, firmness, and energy," were required; that they did not expect Gordon to be bound by the salary named in his own telegram, and that they begged him to visit the Colony "at once" – repeating the phrase twice. All these messages reached Gordon's hands on 2nd April. Two days later he started in the sailing vessel Scotia, no other ship being obtainable.
The Cape authorities had therefore no ground to complain of the dilatoriness of the man to whom they appealed in their difficulty, although their telegram was despatched 3rd of March, and Gordon did not reach Cape Town before the 3rd of May. It will be quite understood that Gordon had offered in the first place, and been specially invited in the second place, to proceed to the Cape, for the purpose of dealing with the difficulty in Basutoland. He was to find that, just as his mission to China had been complicated by extraneous circumstances, so was his visit to the Cape to be rendered more difficult by Party rivalries, and by work being thrust upon him which he had several times refused to accept, and for the efficient discharge of which, in his own way, he knew he would never obtain the requisite authority.
Before entering upon this matter a few words may be given to the financial agreement between himself and the Cape Government. The first office in 1880 had carried with it a salary of £1500; in 1881 Gordon had offered to go for £700; in 1882 the salary was to be a matter of arrangement, and on arrival at Cape Town he was offered £1200 a year. He refused to accept more than £800 a year; but as he required and insisted on having a secretary, the other £400 was assigned for that purpose. In naming such a small and inadequate salary Gordon was under the mistaken belief that his imperial pay of £500 a year would continue, but, unfortunately for him, a new regulation, 25th June 1881, had come into force while he was buried away in the Mauritius, and he was disqualified from the receipt of the income he had earned. Gordon was very indignant, more especially because it was clear that he was doing public service at the Cape, while, as he said with some bitterness, if he had started an hotel or become director of a company, his pay would have gone on all the same. The only suggestion the War Office made was that he should ask the Cape Government to compensate him, but this he indignantly refused. In the result all his savings during the Mauritius command were swallowed up, and I believe I understate the amount when I say that his Cape experience cost him out of his own pocket from first to last five hundred pounds. That sum was a very considerable one to a man who never inherited any money, and who went through life scorning all opportunities of making it. But on this occasion he vindicated a principle, and showed that "money was not his object."
As Gordon went to the Cape specially for the purpose of treating the Basutoland question, it may be well to describe briefly what that question was. Basutoland is a mountainous country, difficult of access, but in resources self-sufficing, on the eastern side of the Orange Free State, and separated from Natal and Kaffraria, or the Transkei division of Cape Colony, by the sufficiently formidable Drakensberg range. Its population consisted of 150,000 stalwart and freedom-loving Highlanders, ruled by four chiefs – Letsea, Masupha, Molappo, and Lerothodi, with only the three first of whom had Gordon in any way to deal. Notwithstanding their numbers, courage, and the natural strength of their country, they owed their safety from absorption by the Boers to British protection, especially in 1868, and they were taken over by us as British subjects without any formality three years later. They do not seem to have objected so long as the tie was indefinite, but when in 1880 it was attempted to enforce the regulations of the Peace Preservation Act by disarming these clans, then the Basutos began a pronounced and systematic opposition. Letsea and Lerothodi kept up the pretence of friendliness, but Masupha fortified his chief residence at Thaba Bosigo, and openly prepared for war. That war had gone on for two years without result, and the total cost of the Basuto question had been four millions sterling when Gordon was summoned to the scene. Having given this general description of the question, it will be well to state the details of the matters in dispute, as set forth by Gordon after he had examined all the papers and heard the evidence of the most competent and well-informed witnesses.
His memorandum, dated 26th May 1882, read as follows: —
"In 1843 the Basuto chiefs entered into a treaty with Her Majesty's Government, by which the limits of Basutoland were recognised roughly in 1845. The Basuto chiefs agreed by convention with Her Majesty's Government to a concession of land on terminable leases, on the condition that Her Majesty's Government should protect them from Her Majesty's subjects.
"In 1848 the Basuto chiefs agreed to accept the Sovereignty of Her Majesty the Queen, on the understanding that Her Majesty's Government would restrain Her Majesty's subjects in the territories they possessed.
"Between 1848 and 1852, notwithstanding the above treaties, a large portion of Basutoland was annexed by the proclamation of Her Majesty's Government, and this annexation was accompanied by hostilities, which were afterwards decided by Sir George Cathcart as being undertaken in support of unjustifiable aggression.
"In 1853, notwithstanding the treaties, Basutoland was abandoned, leaving its chiefs to settle as they could with the Europeans of the Free State who were settled in Basutoland and were mixed up with the Basuto people.
"In 1857, the Basutos asked Her Majesty's Government to arbitrate and settle their quarrels. This request was refused.
"In 1858 the Free State interfered to protect their settlers, and a war ensued, and the Free State was reduced to great extremities, and asked Her Majesty's Government to mediate. This was agreed to, and a frontier line was fixed by Her Majesty's Government.
"In 1865 another war broke out between the Free State and the Basutos, at the close of which the Basutos lost territory, and were accepted as British subjects by Her Majesty's Government for the second time, being placed under the direct government of Her Majesty's High Commissioner.
"In 1871 Basutoland was annexed to the Crown Colony of the Cape of Good Hope, without the Basutos having been consulted.
"In 1872 the Crown Colony became a colony with a responsible Government, and the Basutos were placed virtually under another power. The Basutos asked for representation in the Colonial Parliament, which was refused, and to my mind here was the mistake committed which led to these troubles.
"Then came constant disputes, the Disarmament Act, the Basuto War, and present state of affairs.
"From this chronology there are four points that stand out in relief: —
"1. That the Basuto people, who date back generations, made treaties with the British Government, which treaties are equally binding, whether between two powerful states, or between a powerful state and a weak one.
"2. That, in defiance of the treaties, the Basutos lost land.
"3. That, in defiance of the treaties, the Basutos, without being consulted or having their rights safeguarded, were handed over to another power – the Colonial Government.
"4. That that other power proceeded to enact their disarmament, a process which could only be carried out with a servile race, like the Hindoos of the plains of India, and which any one of understanding must see would be resisted to the utmost by any people worth the name; the more so in the case of the Basutos, who realised the constant contraction of their frontiers in defiance of the treaties made with the British Government, and who could not possibly avoid the conclusion that this disarmament was only a prelude to their extinction.
"The necessary and inevitable result of the four deductions was that the Basutos resisted, and remain passively resisting to this day.
"The fault lay in the British Government not having consulted the Basutos, their co-treaty power, when they handed them over to the Colonial Government. They should have called together a national assembly of the Basuto people, in which the terms of the transfer could have been quietly arranged, and this I consider is the root of all the troubles, and expenses, and miseries which have sprung up; and therefore, as it is always best to go to the root of any malady, I think it would be as well to let bygones be bygones, and to commence afresh by calling together by proclamation a Pitso of the whole tribe, in order to discuss the best means of sooner securing the settlement of the country. I think that some such proclamation should be issued. By this Pitso we would know the exact position of affairs, and the real point in which the Basutos are injured or considered themselves to be injured.
"To those who wish for the total abandonment of Basutoland, this course must be palatable; to those who wish the Basutos well, and desire not to see them exterminated, it must also be palatable; and to those who hate the name of Basutoland it must be palatable, for it offers a solution which will prevent them ever hearing the name again.
"This Pitso ought to be called at once. All Colonial officials ought to be absent, for what the colony wants is to know what is the matter; and the colony wishes to know it from the Basuto people, irrespective of the political parties of the Government.
"Such a course would certainly recommend itself to the British Government, and to its masters – the British people.
"Provided the demands of the Basutos – who will, for their own sakes, never be for a severing of their connection with the colony, in order to be eventually devoured by the Orange Free State – are such as will secure the repayment to the colony of all expenses incurred by the Colonial Government in the maintenance of this connection, and I consider that the Colonial Government should accept them.
"With respect to the Loyals, there are some 800 families, the cost of keeping whom is on an average one shilling per diem each family, that is £40 per diem, or £1200 per month, and they have been rationed during six months at cost of £7200. Their claims may therefore be said to be some £80,000. Now, if these 800 families (some say half) have claims amounting to £30 each individually (say 400 families at £30), £12,000 paid at once would rid the colony of the cost of subsistence of these families, viz. £600 a month (the retention of them would only add to the colonial expenditure, and tend to pauperise them).
"I believe that £30,000 paid at once to the Loyals would reduce their numbers to one-fourth what they are now. It is proposed to send up a Commission to examine into their claims; the Commission will not report under two months, and there will be the delay of administration at Cape Town, during all which time £1200 a month are being uselessly expended by the colony, detrimentally to the Loyals. Therefore I recommend (1) that the sum of £30,000 should be at once applied to satisfy the minor claims of the Loyals; (2) that this should be done at once, at same time as the meeting of the National Pitso.
"The effect of this measure in connection with the meeting of the National Pitso would be very great, for it would be a positive proof of the good disposition of the Colonial Government. The greater claims could, if necessary, wait for the Parliamentary Commission, but I would deprecate even this delay, and though for the distribution of the £30,000 I would select those on whom the responsibility of such distribution could be put, without reference to the Colonial Government, for any larger sums perhaps the colonial sanction should be taken.
"I urge that this measure of satisfying the Loyals is one that presses and cannot well wait months to be settled.
"In conclusion, I recommend (1) that a National Pitso be held; (2) that the Loyals should at once be paid off.
"I feel confident that by the recommendation No. 1 nothing could be asked for detrimental to colonial interests, whose Government would always have the right of amending or refusing any demands, and that by recommendation No. 2 a great moral effect would be produced at once, and some heavy expenses saved."
Attached to this memorandum was the draft of a proclamation to the chiefs, etc., of Basutoland, calling on them to meet in Pitso or National Assembly without any agent of the Colonial Government being present. It was not very surprising that such a policy of fairness and consideration for Basuto opinion, because so diametrically opposite to everything that Government had been doing, should have completely taken the Cape authorities aback, nor were its chances of being accepted increased by Gordon entrusting it to Mr Orpen, whose policy in the matter had been something more than criticised by the Ministers at that moment in power at the Cape. Gordon's despatch was in the hands of the Cape Premier early in June, and the embarrassment he felt at the ability and force with which the Basuto side of the question was put by the officer, who was to settle the matter for the Cape Government, was so great that, instead of making any reply, he passed it on to Lord Kimberley and the Colonial Office for solution. It was not until the 7th of August that an answer was vouchsafed to Gordon on what was, after all, the main portion of his task in South Africa. In the interval Gordon was employed on different military and administrative matters, for he had had thrust on him as a temporary charge the functions of Commandant-General of the Cape forces, which he had never wished to accept, but it will be clearer to the reader to follow to the end the course of his Basuto mission, which was the essential cause of his presence in South Africa.
On the 18th July the Ministers requested Gordon to go up to Basutoland. At that moment, and indeed for more than three weeks later, Gordon had received no reply to the detailed memorandum already quoted. He responded to this request with the draft of a convention that would "save the susceptibilities of Mr Orpen between whom and Masupha any entente would seem impossible." The basis of that convention was to be the semi-independence of the Basutos, but its full text must be given in order to show the consistency, as well as the simplicity, of Gordon's proposed remedy of a question that had gone on for years without any prospect of termination.
Convention between Colony, Cape of Good Hope, and the Chief and People of Basutoland
"The Colonial Government having nominated as their representatives, Colonel C. Griffiths and Dr J. W. Matthews, the Basuto nation having nominated the Chief Letsea Moshesh and Masupha Moshesh as their representatives, the following convention has been agreed upon between these representatives: —
"Art. 1. There shall be a complete amnesty on both sides to all who have taken part in the late hostilities.
"Art. 2. The question of the succession to Molappo Moshesh's chieftainship shall be decided by the Chief of the Basuto Nation.
"Art. 3. The Colonial Government engages to respect the integrity of the Basuto nation within the limits to be hereafter decided upon, and also to use its best endeavours to have these limits respected by the Orange Free State.
"Art. 4. The Colonial Government will appoint a Resident to the Basuto nation, with two sub-residents. The Resident will consult with the leading Chief of the Basuto Nation on all measures concerning the welfare of that country, but the government of the Basutos in all internal affairs will remain under the jurisdiction of the chiefs.
"Art. 5. The Supreme Council of Basutoland will consist of the leading chiefs and the Resident; the minor chiefs of Basutoland will form a council with the sub-residents. These minor councils can be appealed against by any non-content to the Supreme Council.
"Art. 6. A hut-tax will be collected of 10s. per hut by the chiefs, and will be paid to the Resident and sub-resident. The sum thus collected will be used in paying the Resident £2000 a year, all included: the sub-residents £1200 a year, all included; in providing for the education of people (now costing £3320 a year); in making roads, etc.
"Art. 7. The chiefs collecting hut-tax will be paid 10 per cent. of the sums they collect.
"Art. 8. The frontier line will be placed under headmen, who will be responsible that no thieving be permitted, that spoors are followed up. For this these headmen will be paid at the rate of £20 to £60 per annum, according to the length of frontier they are responsible for.
"Art. 9. All passes must be signed by Residents or sub-residents for the Orange Free State, or for the Cape Colony.
"Query– Would it be advisable to add chiefs and missionaries after sub-residents?
"Art. 10. Colonial warrants will be valid in Basutoland, the chiefs being responsible that prisoners are given up to Resident or sub-residents.
"Art. 11. All communications between Basutoland and the Orange Free State to be by and through the Resident.
"Art. 12. This Convention to be in quadruplicate, two copies being in possession of the Colonial Government, and two copies in possession of the Basuto chiefs.
"Art. 13. On signature of this Convention, and on the fulfilment of Art. 1, amnesty clause, the Colonial Government agrees to withdraw the military forces and the present magisterial administration."
To this important communication no answer was ever vouchsafed, but on 7th August, long after it was in the hands of Ministers, Mr Thomas Scanlan, the Premier, wrote a long reply to the earlier memorandum of 26th May. The writer began by quoting Lord Kimberley's remarks on that memorandum, which were as follows: —
"I have received the memorandum on the Basuto question by Major-General Gordon. I do not think it necessary to enter upon a discussion of the policy suggested in this memorandum, but it will doubtless be borne in mind by your Ministers that, as I informed you by my telegram of the 6th of May last, H.M.'s Government cannot hold out any expectation that steps will be taken by them to relieve the colony of its responsibilities in Basutoland."
The interpretation placed, and no doubt correctly placed, on that declaration of Government policy was that under no circumstances was it prepared to do anything in the matter, and that it had quite a sufficient number of troubles and worries without the addition of one in remote and unimportant Basutoland. Having thus got out of the necessity of discussing this important memorandum, under the cloak of the Colonial Office's decision in favour of inaction, the Premier went on to say that he was "most anxious to avoid the resumption of hostilities on the one hand or the abandonment of the territory on the other." There was an absolute ignoring in this statement of Gordon's deliberate opinion that the only way to solve the difficulty was by granting Basutoland semi-independence on the terms of a Convention providing for the presence of a British Resident, through whom all external matters were to be conducted. At the same time Mr Scanlan informed Gordon that he was sending up Mr Sauer, then Secretary for Native Affairs, who was a nominee of Mr Orpen, the politician whose policy was directly impugned.
On Mr Sauer reaching King William's Town, where Gordon was in residence at the Grand Depôt of the Cape forces, he at once asked him to accompany him to Basutoland. Gordon at first declined to do this on two grounds, viz. that he saw no good could ensue unless the convention were granted, and also that he did not wish Mr Sauer, or any other representative of the Cape Government, as a companion, because he had learnt that "Masupha would only accept his proposed visit as a private one, and then only with his private secretary and two servants."
After some weeks' hesitation Gordon was induced by Mr Sauer to so far waive his objection as to consent to accompany him to Letsea's territory. This Basuto chief kept up the fiction of friendly relations with the Cape, but after Gordon had personally interviewed him, he became more than ever convinced that all the Basuto chiefs were in league. Mr Sauer was of opinion that Letsea and the other chiefs might be trusted to attack and able to conquer Masupha. There was no possibility of reconciling these clashing views, but Gordon also accompanied Mr Sauer to Leribe, the chief town of Molappo's territory, north of, and immediately adjoining that of, Masupha. Here Gordon found fresh evidence as to the correctness of his view, that all the Basuto leaders were practically united, and he wrote a memorandum, dated 16th September, which has not been published, showing the hopelessness of getting one chief to coerce the others. Notwithstanding the way he had been treated by the Cape Government, which had ignored all his suggestions, Gordon, in his intense desire to do good, and his excessive trust in the honour of other persons, yielded to Mr Sauer's request to visit Masupha, and not only yielded but went without any instructions or any prior agreement that his views were to prevail. The consequence was that Mr Sauer deliberately resolved to destroy Gordon's reputation as a statesman, and to ensure the triumph of his own policy by an act of treachery that has never been surpassed.
While Gordon went as a private visitor at the special invitation of Masupha to that chief's territory, Mr Sauer, who was well acquainted with Gordon's views, and also the direct author of Gordon's visit at that particular moment, incited Letsea to induce Lerothodi to attack Masupha. At the moment that the news of this act of treachery reached Masupha's ears, Gordon was a guest in Masupha's camp, and the first construction placed upon events by that chief was, that Gordon had been sent up to hoodwink and keep him quiet, while a formidable invasion was plotted of his territory. When Masupha reported this news to Gordon, he asked what he advised him to do, and it has been established that the object of the question was to ascertain how far Gordon was privy to the plot. Gordon's candid reply – "Refuse to have any dealings with the Government until the forces are withdrawn," and his general demeanour, which showed unaffected indignation, convinced Masupha of his good faith and innocence of all participation in the plot.
A very competent witness, Mr Arthur Pattison (letter in The Times, 20th August 1885), bears this testimony: "Gordon divined his character marvellously, and was the only man Masupha had the slightest regard for. Masupha, if you treat him straightforwardly, is as nice a man as possible, and even kind and thoughtful; but, if you treat him the other way, he is a fiend incarnate."
Had Masupha not been thus convinced, Gordon's death was decided on, and never in the whole course of his career, not even when among the Taepings on the day of the Wangs' murder in Soochow, nor among Suleiman's slave-hunters at Shaka, was he in greater peril than when exposed by the treacherous proceedings of Sauer and Orpen to the wrath of Masupha. On his return in safety he at once sent in his resignation, but those who played him false not merely never received their deserts for an unpardonable breach of faith to a loyal colleague, but have been permitted by a lax public opinion at the Cape to remain in the public service, and are now discharging high and responsible duties.
Gordon's mission to the leading Basuto chief, and the policy of conciliation which he consistently and ably advocated from the beginning to the end of his stay at the Cape, were thus failures, but they failed, as an impartial writer like Mr Gresswell says, solely because "of Mr Sauer's intrigues behind his back." It is only necessary to add what Gordon himself wrote on this subject on his return, and to record that practically the very policy he advocated was carried into force, not by the Cape Government, but over its head by the British Government, two years later, in the separation of Basutoland from the Cape Colony, and by placing it in its old direct dependence under the British Crown.
"I have looked over the Cape papers; the only thing that is misrepresented, so far as I could see in a ten minutes' glance at them, is that Sauer says I knew of his intentions of sending an expedition against Masupha. He puts it thus: 'Gordon knew that an expedition was being organised against Masupha.' He gives apparently three witnesses that I knew well. It is quite true; but read the words. I knew Sauer was going to try the useless expedient of an expedition against Masupha, and before he did so we agreed I should go and try and make peace. While carrying on this peace mission, Sauer sends the expedition. So you see he is verbally correct; yet the deduction is false; in fact, who would ever go up with peace overtures to a man who was to be attacked during those overtures, as Masupha was? Garcia knew well enough what a surprise it was to him and me when we heard Sauer was sending the expedition. Garcia was with me at the time."
And again, when at Jaffa, General Gordon adds further, on the 27th of July 1883: —
"I saw Masupha one day at 10 a. m., and spoke to him; Sauer was twenty miles away. At 1 p. m. I came back, and wrote to Sauer an account of what had passed; before I sent it off I received a letter from Sauer. I believe it is wished to be made out that Sauer wrote this letter after he had heard what had passed between Masupha and me. This is not the case, for Sauer, having let me go to Masupha, changed his mind and wrote the letter, but this letter had nothing to do with my interview with Masupha."
With this further quotation of Gordon's own words I may conclude the description of the Basuto mission, which, although deemed a failure at the time, was eventually the direct cause of the present administrative arrangement in that important district of South Africa.
"In order you should understand the position of affairs, I recall to your memory the fact that Scanlan, Merriman, and yourself all implied to me doubts of Orpen's policy and your desire to remove him; that I deprecated any such change in my favour; that I accepted the post of Commandant-General on Merriman's statement that the Government desired me to eradicate the red-tape system of the colonial forces; that I made certain reports to the Government upon the settlement of the Basuto question in May and July, showing my views; that the Government were aware of the great difference between my views and those of Orpen, both by letter and verbally to Merriman; also to my objections to go up. Sauer was told by me the same thing. I conversed with him en route, and I told him if I visited Masupha I could not afterwards fight him, for I would not go and spy upon his defences. Sauer asked me to go to Masupha; he knew my views; yet when I was there negotiating, he, or rather Orpen, moved Lerothodi to attack Masupha, who would, I believe, have come to terms respecting the acceptance of magistrates, a modified hut-tax, and border police. The reported movement of Lerothodi prevented my coming to any arrangement. I told Masupha, when he sent and told me of Lerothodi's advance, not to answer the Government until the hostile movements had ceased. The Government sent me up, knowing my views, and against my wish, and knowing I was not likely to mince matters. There are not more than two Europeans in Basutoland who believe in Orpen or his policy, while the natives have lost all confidence in him. Sauer shut his eyes to all this, and has thrown in his lot with Orpen. Masupha is a sincere man, and he does not care to have placed with him magistrates, against whom are complaints, which Sauer ignores. To show you I was in earnest, I offered to remain as magistrate with Masupha for two years, so much did I desire a settlement of the Basuto question. I did not want nor would I have taken the post of Governor's Agent. The chiefs and people desire peace, but not at any price. They have intelligence enough to see through wretched magistrates like some of those sent up into the native territories. They will accept a convention like the one I sent down to the Colonial Secretary on the 19th of July, and no other. I do not write this to escape being a scapegoat – in fact, I like the altar – only that you may know my views. As long as the present magistrates stay there, no chance exists for any arrangement. As to the Premier's remark that I would not fight against Masupha, is it likely I could fight against a man with whom I am life and soul? Would I fight against him because he would not be controlled by some men like – and – ? Even suppose I could sink my conscience to do so, what issue would result from the action of undisciplined and insubordinate troops, who are difficult to keep in order during peace-time, and about whom, when I would have made an example of one officer, a Minister telegraphs to me to let him down easy. I beg to recall to you that Her Majesty's Government disapproved of the former Basuto war; therefore, why should I, who am an outsider to the colony, even pretend I could make war against a noble people, who resist magistrates of no capacity? The Government were well warned by me, and they cannot, therefore, plead being led astray."
Intimately connected with the Basuto question was the larger one of the right treatment to be generally extended to the natives, and on that subject General Gordon drew up, on 19th October 1882, the following masterly note, which elicited the admiration of one of the Cape Premiers, Mr Merriman, who said – "As a Colony we must try to follow out the ideas sketched by General Gordon."