In response, he travelled to Bechuanaland (with John Gordon Sprigg accompanying him as his Treasurer General) "in the endeavour to effect a peaceful arrangement". The sympathy which he at times expressed for the Boers in this controversy helped to maintain his parliamentary support, but made him very controversial in the eyes of the Imperial authorities and the Cape political elite. He was accused of propounding Parnellite principles and denounced by British politicians in Cape Town as a “Fenian” whose "offence is rank", and who "has been fraternising with Mynheer Van Dunk instead of sticking with John Bull". Even in less hostile circles, he was nonetheless known as "the Afrikaner from Cork".