[1] With a subsidy from David Livingston he was provided the money to marry Emily Unwin and with her go to South Africa.

[2] His missionary work included helping to start the first mission in Matabeleland in 1859 at Inyati.

In 1879 he resigned from the missionary society and joined the British Bechuanaland colonial service.

[1] In 1888 at the instigation of Cecil Rhodes he was sent to Matabeleland to use his father's reputation to persuade its king Lobengula to sign a treaty of friendship with Britain and to look favorably on Rhodes' later approach for the Rudd Concession mining rights.

In 1893 Moffat exposed the trickery behind the BSAC Bosman Concession in Ngamiland, which was abandoned as a result.