Adamantia : the truth about the South African diamond fields : or, a ...

THE DI.\lJOXD }'IELDS A BRIGAND ST.\TE. 3-15,induce the British Government to receive and proclaimthe diamond fields a separate and distinct CrownColony!· Of course, if they were already part andparcel of the Cape Colony by annexation, 110 such plancould either be proposed or possible. And so is it.proved that the diamond fields (or Griqualand West,as Sir H. Barkly delights in terming them) are, andhave been, since the month of October, 1871, a districtor tract of country which has forcibly and illegallybeen seized and retained bv a number of Colonialofficials and armed police, ;'ho, by the act, ha,"obecome guilty of what all civilized laws condemn as.brigandage. They have established, and still maintainthemselves, vi et armis, as a military despotism, agovernment of filibusters, wholly and solely appointedby, and acting under the personal will and authority,of their Chief, Sir H. Barkly. Thus" GriqualandWest," or the diamond fields, constitutes a brigandstate !Since the days of the old buccaneers of the SpanishMain no such deed of piracy or brigandage has beencommitted by a British Governor: it would be necessaryto go back to the acts of the notorious Morgan tofindany parallel.As matters now stand, it would be an easy thingfor "he British Government to retreat with honourand credit from the absurd, illegal, and unwittinglyfhlse position into which they have been deluded bySir H. Barkly; toiz., bU aimp1u refusing to amlex thc• This intelligence arrived by a late mail from the Cape, November~1872. rule" Diamond News," DutoitspaD, September 14th, 1872;.. Friend of the Free State," September 26th, 1872 j and the Soutb.African Press general1y, 8ubsequent to those dates.Digitized by Goog Ie