Cape of Good Hope.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume XIII, Issue 1371, 22 September 1858, Page 4

Cape of Good Hope.

TERMINATION OF THE BASUTO WAR. The Port Louis Commercial Gazette of the 17th June gives the following information in reference to the termination of the war between the Free State and the Basuto Kaffirs : — The Free State war against the Basutos has come to an end. After the expulsion of Letsea’s people from Morijah, the Boer commando moved on in the direction of Thaba Bossigo, the redoubtable mountain stronghold of Mo. shesh himself; but having come within the near vicinity of it, they did not, for various reasons, deem it expedient to advance any further. First, they found that winter had already set in, and they had learnt before now that Basutoland winter presents by no means the most favourable conditions for a successful campaign. Secondly, they discovered that their force, small in number as it had been from the beginning, was thoroughly exhausted by the continuous field operationsit had carried on for two months together. Thirdly, they learnt that their friends and relatives within the Free State boundary were exposed to great ■danger from the predatory bands of Basutos who had already laid waste so much of the country in the rear. And, last, though not least, they saw that Thaba Bossigo was a mountain fastness of an almost impregnable sort, and that, if they could reduce it at all, they could only do so at an enormous sacrifice of human life. In these circumstances they very judiciously resolved on suspending any further movements on the offensive. They retired to the banks of the Caledon river ; and there they determined to disband their forces, at least for a time. And thus has ended a war of as miserable and melancholy a character as was ever waged in South Africa. Both parties have won victories and sustained losses equally. From the outset the odds were decidedly against the Boers. They had to encounter an enemv far more strong than themselves. They had to act on the offensive throughout; and they had to invade a mountainous country as crowded with natural forts and fastnesses as the Annatolas themselves. But their spirit and determination never flagged. They fought and conquered quite as gloriously as our colonial burghers or troops ever fought on the Kaffrarian frontier; and whatever they achieved, they did it unaided and alone, and in spite of the most violent and unreasonable clamours and hostility of a blatant faction of would-be philanthropists within the colony. The Basutos, on the other hand, acted their part with equal skill, ability, ■and determination. Moshesh cared little for the loss of a few scores of his crowded population, and he seems therefore to have made no •exertion to prevent collisions between his minor captains and the Boer commandos. His object was manifestly to entice his foe further into the heart of his mountain fastnesses, and finally to attract them to Thaba Bossigo itself, where he must have felt convinced that his success was certain. And while the main course of his policy was operating thus, he arranged the flank foray into the Caledon and Winburg districts, asaby-play which was sure to weaken his enemy, and to replenish his own exchequer. When hostilities ceased the balance of profit and loss between the contending powers must have stood somewhat thus :—The Basutos lost ■several hundred men, several thousand sheep and cattle, and bad numerous kraals wholly pillaged and burnt. The Boers, on the other hand, must have lost some forty or fifty of their men ; the agricultural operations throughout the Free State must have been for a time suspended to a ruinous extent ; large flocks and herds were swept away, both in the Caledon River and the Winburg districts ; and numerous farms had been laid waste and utterly destroyed. Both parties have clearly found war to be a losing game ; they are now in a most salutary fear of each other; and the way has been therefore paved in all respects most favourably for the successful mediation of Sir George Grey, and the final and peaceful adjustment of the whole boundary question. To this one point should the best endeavours of the friends of the Boers and the Basutos alike be now directed. They are not the true friends, either of the belligerents or of the colony, who attempt to spread further strife and mis’c.iief, and who, on the one side, are of "the fiendish atrocity" of the burghers, or on the other part talk of the barbarous ferocity of the blacks, and the paramount necessity of subjecting them to European sway or exterminating them altogether. Neither the Free State nor the Basutos are the really culpable parties in the present calamities. They have done on both sides no more than was unavoidable in the circumstances ; and they have certainly shown no greater ferocity or cruelty than has been witnessed over and over ■again in the most “ civilised” watfare that has ■ever been waged in Europe. It is not upon President Boshof, or Moshesh, or Sir George ■Grey, that the odium and the responsibility of this miserable war must in the future rest. Those who are most directly chargeable with it are the British Government, under whose regime all the seeds of confusion and bloodshed beyond the Orange River have been sown. And next to the British Government must be held responsible that majority of the colonial parliament who refused their sanction to the mediation of Sir G. Grey, which would in all probability have proved satisfactory and successful.