The surrender of the Transvaal, which was a good deal nearer than Froude thought, was at least successful for a time, a longer time than Froude's own life.

He did not share Gladstone's ignorance of its value; he knew it to be rich in minerals, especially in gold.

But he knew also that Carnarvon had been deceived about the willingness of the inhabitants to become British subjects, and he sympathised with their independence.

It illustrates his own fairness and detachment of mind that he should have taken so strong and so unpopular a line when the Boers were generally supposed in England to have acquiesced in the loss of their liberties, and when his hero Sir Garnet Wolseley, to whom he dedicated his English in Ireland, had declared that the Vaal would run back to the Drakensberg before the British flag ceased to wave over Pretoria.
-- * Two Lectures on South Africa, pp.

80, 81, 85.
-- Froude's South African policy was to work with the Dutch, and keep the natives in their places.