CHAPTER XIV.

FROM THE BATTLE OF MAJUBA TO THE SIGNING OF THE FIRST CONVENTION.

Reception of the news of the Boer outbreak in England-Warlike attitude of the Government-Mr. Rylands' motion condemning the annexation defeated by a two-thirds majority-Mr. Gladstone repudiates his Midlothian speeches-Treachery at homeThe Transvaal Independence Committee-The peace negotiations-The first telegrams requiring the Boers to desist from armed opposition-Lord Kimberley's indecision-Sir Evelyn Wood's telegrams-The armistice-Lord Kimberley's telegram of the 13th of March-The treaty of peace-Evacuation of the Boer positions, and return of General Roberts-State of the loyalists -Formation of a committee, and election of delegates to England -The Loyalists' Deputation at Newcastle-My journey thither -A Zulu view of the peace-Departure of Mr. White for England-The Royal Commission-Position of the interim British Government-Protest of the Loyalists-My departure for England-The Royal Commission at Pretoria-The proposal for a plébiscite rejected-Signing of the Convention-The meeting of native chiefs, and their disappointment.

THE news of the Boer outbreak was at first received in England with apathy, as being only another little African war. But the Bronker's Spruit affair apparently roused public feeling, and a determination was expressed not to hear of peace till the rebels submitted themselves to the authority of the Crown. Lord Kimberley, the Secretary for the Colonies, in sending out instructions to the new Governor of the Cape, Sir

Hercules Robinson, emphasized the national feeling in the following terms :

It is useless to discuss arrangements which can only be practicable when the authority of the Crown has been vindicated and the maintenance of tranquillity is firmly assured.

The Government took the earliest opportunity of assuring the nation that the rising should be put down. In the Queen's speech at the opening of Parliament, her Majesty was made to say :

A rising in the Transvaal has recently imposed upon me the duty of taking military measures with a view to the prompt vindication of my authority, and has of necessity for the time set aside any plan for securing to the European settlers that full control over their own local affairs, without prejudice to the interests of the natives, which I had been desirous to confer.

On the 21st of January, 1881, before Laing's Nek, Mr. Rylands made a motion in the House of Commons condemning the annexation of the Transvaal, and deprecating the measures taken by the Government to enforce British supremacy over the "people" of the country. Mr. Gladstone made a speech in reply, in which he explained his statement during the Midlothian campaign that he "repudiated" the annexation of the Transvaal in a manner which would have been ingenious in a mere pettifogger, but which was utterly unworthy of a statesman with his reputation. He said :

I repudiate the speech which the hon. gentleman opposite has just delivered, but I cannot undo that speech, and prevent it from having been made, or I admit I would do so; still I repudiate that speech as much as I repudiated the annexation of Cyprus and the Transvaal. To repudiate the annexation of a country is one thing; to abandon that annexation is another.

After this verbal quibble, he went on to say that the

Government was bound by the speech from the throne, and he stated that they would be precluded from entertaining the idea of any grant of a free legislature to the Transvaal until the Boers had submitted. He continued:

The question of giving free institutions to the Transvaal would never cause the slightest difficulty to either side of the House; but there is the larger question of the relations which are to subsist in future between the Transvaal and the British Crown, and the way in which we are to reconcile the obligations we have undertaken with respect to the future tranquillity of South Africa and the interests of the natives of that country with the desire that we feel to avoid the appearance of assumption of authority over a free European race adverse to the will of that race. I shall therefore say that as her Majesty's Government have advised the Crown to state that the rising in the Transvaal has imposed on the Queen the duty of taking military measures for the prompt vindication of her authority, my second objection to the motion is that the latter part of it is in direct contrariety to the announcement made from the throne.

Mr. Grant Duff, the Under Colonial Secretary, in the course of the same debate, said, "Government was at an end if armed men openly defied the law, and attacked our troops with impunity." The feeling of the House was so strong against Mr. Rylands' motion, that it was defeated by a two-thirds majority.

But these brave words were a sham. Mr. Gladstone's following contained a number of persons to whom treason was a small thing in comparison with the "rights " of republicans, even though the latter might be at war with their own sovereign. A number of these persons formed themselves into a "Transvaal Independence Committee." The declared object of the Society was to assist the Boers-the Queen's enemies, who were slaughtering the soldiers of the crown-to attain their independence of British authority. It is difficult to contemplate with patience such

proceedings, which in brighter days of the empire would have assured to the members of this unnatural committee a proper reward. It was only too patent that the spirit of the nation had sunk to a low ebb, when an association formed ostensibly with a view of succouring rebels in arms was permitted to exist for one day. The anti-patriotic doctrines promulgated by the ministerial party for party purposes had eaten deep into the vitals of the nation. A false and unhealthy cosmopolitanism had for the time swamped all those wholesome sentiments of nationality and race pride which have made England great and respected. It was a period of unhappy reaction, during which the national courage and the sense of national responsibility sank to a lower level than at any time during the century. Englishmen appeared to forget they were English, and philosophical Radicals were allowed free scope for their suicidal vagaries without let or hindrance.

The friends of their country's enemies felt their way cautiously at first, growing more bold as they perceived the dormant state of popular feeling. There is no more instructive or more painful reading in our history than the negotiations which mark the surrender to the Boers that followed hard on Majuba. It is instructive because it shows the workings of insidious, underhand principles at utter variance with any idea of national sentiment or national honour; and it is painful because it testifies to fatal indifference on the part of the English people to the acts of faithless leaders. It evinces a state of national degradation comparable with that which existed in the time. of the second Charles, when a monarch sold his country for gold, and the people regarded the sale with apathy.

S

Thank God there are now some symptoms of a revival from this dangerous sleep.

The first ostensible and apparent attempts to obtain peace were made by President Brand, of the Orange Free State. Previously to General Colley's death the President had communicated with him, urging him to allow peace to be made, and to guarantee the Boers not being treated as rebels if they submitted. General Colley replied that he could give no such assurance, but he proposed in a telegram to the Colonial Secretary to publish an amnesty on entering the Transvaal to all peaceable persons, excepting one or two of the most prominent rebels. He received a reply authorizing him to announce that if the Boers ceased from armed opposition, a scheme should be framed for the settlement of difficulties, but he was instructed only to promise protection to peaceable inhabitants, reserving all further questions for the Home Government.

The telegram promising a settlement upon the Boers ceasing from armed opposition, was sent on the 8th of February, the day of the fight at the Ingogo. On the 13th of February, Sir George Colley received an official communication from Kruger, not testifying to much submission, requiring a cancellation of the act of annexation, and offering, upon the British troops in the Transvaal being withdrawn, to permit them to retire, and thereupon to evacuate the Boer position in Natal. This offer was coupled with a proposal to submit the retrocession of the country to a Royal Commission. On the 16th Lord Kimberley telegraphed again, that if the Boers desisted from armed opposition, a Royal Commission should be appointed to develop the scheme alluded to in his telegram of the 8th. At the same time a telegram was sent to