His newly acquired property lay near the Cape's frontier, and was therefore surrounded by a large population of non-Christian Xhosa people – whom Sprigg regarded with considerable suspicion.

Lord Carnarvon nevertheless pushed ahead and replaced the Cape governor with his own political ally Henry Bartle Frere with the intent of forcing the region into confederation, and Sprigg, along with fellow parliamentarian John Paterson, prudently re-aligned themselves as pro-federalists.

Frere's first attempts to find a replacement government were unsuccessful, as the Cape's most influential local leaders all refused his request to take office.

In spite of the frontier war, Sprigg famously left his family and farm on the border immediately, to assist Frere in forming a new Cape government.

Secondly, the representative of the Molteno government, in its public response to Frere's action, made the strategic error of attacking the legitimacy of the Governor and thereby of the authority of the British Crown itself.

Expressing anti-imperialist sentiments could be highly offensive in conservative Victorian society, and in the wartime atmosphere, Molteno's party consequently lost the majority of its parliamentary support.

[6] With Governor Henry Bartle Frere's support, Sprigg finally succeeded in implementing the conclusion of his Commission for Frontier Defense, which had been fiercely blocked by the previous government.

In fact, colonial instigation and mis-management of the Basuto Gun War is one of the main reasons why Lesotho eventually became an independent country, and not part of modern South Africa.

[7] Sprigg's imperialist policies towards neighboring states including calling in imperial troops during the Basuto Gun War, confiscation of tribal lands, and supporting the expansion of white settlement into Black African territory.

[9] In spite of his good relationship with the Colonial Office, Sprigg had little grass-roots support locally, and when Frere was recalled to London to face charges of misconduct, his government fell.

He circumvented this with his Registration Bill in 1887, which excluded communal land-owners from voting and thus effectively disenfranchised a large proportion of the Cape's Black African citizens.

(His successor as prime minister, Cecil John Rhodes, was to take these changes even further, by raising the franchise requirements in the Cape Colony and thus further countering the growing preponderance of Black and mixed-race voters.)

This massive disenfranchisement faced furious resistance both from liberal parliamentarians and from Black political organisations who were strong supporters of the original non-racial franchise.

His attempts to extend the Cape's railways to Natal and the Transvaal Republic failed, due to the continued tensions remaining from the earlier confederation scheme and its resultant wars.

The major theme of his third ministry was his increasing disagreement with the powerful Afrikaner Bond party, caused partly by his continued political assistance to Rhodes.

[12] Schreiner was forced to resign in June 1900 because of his anti-war stance, and Sprigg, who was seen in London as an acceptably pro-imperialist candidate, was appointed prime minister for the fourth and last time, though still without parliamentary sanction.

Sprigg's final ministry coincided with the Second Boer War (1899–1902), during which the supplying of the army in the field caused a massive artificial inflation of trade in Southern Africa.

He had begun his fourth term by closely toeing the line of the Colonial Office in London, but this became increasingly difficult, as it brought him into conflict with the largest parties in the Cape parliament.

His refusal to launch an inquiry into the harsh sentences passed during martial law lost him further support, which he needed if he was to appease the Colonial Office, but he finally took a stand when Alfred Milner ordered him to suspend the Cape constitution, supposedly as a preparation for a future confederation.

Meanwhile, the delicate balancing act that Sprigg needed to perform in order to survive politically became ever more precarious, until a string of defeats in parliament and in the 1904 election toppled his government for the final time.