y 
EUROPE AND AFRICA 
on Angra Pequena Bay and asking if England claimed 
suzerainty over that region. The German Government 
followed this with an inquiry on November 16, raising 
again the question of sovereignty, and requesting a definite 
statement of the grounds on which the British claims were 
based. 
These communications were misleading in two particu- 
lars. In the first place, the two purchases of Liideritz 
amounted to three thousand two hundred English square 
miles instead of one hundred and fifty; and while the cession 
of the latter amount of land would not be of much moment 
in a sterile and half-civilized Damara-Namaqualand compris- 
ing over one bundred and fifty thousand square miles of ter- 
ritory, an acquisition of the former size would be highly sig- 
nificant. In the second place, no indication was advanced 
that Germany was expecting to establish any special pro- 
tectorate over Angra Pequena, in case England had no con- 
trol there. In fact, the British Foreign Office, assured by 
its representative in Berlin on August 31, that the German 
Government had no intention of setting up colonies or pro- 
tectorates in Southwest Africa and that Liideritz’s expedition 
was everywhere in the press referred to as a commercial 
enterprise (Handelsniederlassung), considered these commu- 
nications as friendly inquiries as to the propriety of Liid- 
eritz’s setting up a factory in this region and the probability 
of his receiving protection from the British authorities. 
Lord Granville, realizing that considerable time would 
elapse before a definite, detailed answer could be prepared, 
felt that some definite statement of the British position 
should be made at once. Accordingly, on November 21, he 
replied that the sovereignty of the Queen had not been pro- 
claimed over the whole country, but only over Walfish Bay 
and the islands near Angra Pequena Bay. “But,” he added, 
“Her Majesty’s Government consider that any claim to