[citation needed] Griffith, "literally saturated with law", emigrated to the Cape of Good Hope and served as Attorney General, succeeding the conciliatory and liberal William Porter on 20 March 1866, when that fellow Irishman retired.
[1] Griffith was reputedly a highly pugnacious and imperious personality, with little tolerance of the locally elected parliamentary representatives and a "somewhat disagreeable manner" that alienated his colleagues.
He underlined the fact that the Responsible Government movement had strong support from the small but growing "coloured" electorate, which he predicted would soon mobilise in its entirety, and eventually comprise at least half of the Cape's voters.
[5] After a long and bitter political struggle, the parliamentary majority of the local "Responsibles" caused the British Governor to authorise a Bill for self-government to be drafted.
However parliament sent for Mr Jacobs, who had long been Griffith's long-suffering right-hand man, and who was consequently very happy to travel from Grahamstown to draft the bill, outmanoeuvring the hated attorney general.