Not wishing to appear out of control or weak, they approved the expedition (two days after it began) on 19 January 1903. In general the Colonial Office allowed Lugard's expeditions to continue because they were framed as retaliatory and, as Olivier commented in 1906, "If the millions of people [in Nigeria] who do not want us there once get the notion that our people can be killed with impunity they will not be slow to attempt it." Lugard informed the leaders of conquered Sokoto:  The Fulani in old times […] conquered this country. They took the right to rule over it, to levy taxes, to depose kings and to create kings. They in turn have by defeat lost their rule which has come into the hands of the British. All these things which I have said the Fulani by conquest took the right to do now pass to the British. Every Sultan and Emir and the principal officers of state will be appointed by the high Commissioner throughout all this country. The High Commissioner will be guided by all the usual laws of succession and the wishes of the people and chief, but will set them aside if he desires for good cause to do so. The Emirs and chiefs who are appointed will rule over the people as of old time and take such taxes as are approved by the High Commissioner, but they will obey the laws of the Governor and will act in accordance with the advice of the Resident. Concrete plans for transition to Crown rule—direct control by the British Government—apparently began in 1897. In May of this year, Herbert J. Read published a "Memorandum on British possessions in West Africa", which remarked upon the "inconvenient and unscientific boundaries" between Lagos Colony, the Niger Coast Protectorate and the Royal Niger Company. Read suggested they be merged, and more use made of Nigeria's natural resources. In the same year, the British created the Royal West African Frontier Force (RWAFF or WAFF), under the leadership of Colonel Frederick Lugard. In one year, Lugard recruited 2600 troops, evenly split between Hausa and Yoruba. The officers of the RWAFF were British. The operations of this force are still not fully known due to a policy of strict secrecy mandated by the British Government. Guidelines for running the Nigerian colony were established in 1898 by the Niger Committee, chaired by the Earl of Selborne, in 1898. The British finalized the border between Nigeria and French West Africa with the Anglo-French Convention of 1898. The territory of the Royal Niger Company became the Northern Nigeria Protectorate, and the Company itself became a private corporation which continued to do business in Nigeria.