proved-and for the recognition of the independence of Swasi-land.

Article XXV. provided for most favoured nation treatment of England with regard to commerce, and Articles XXVI. and XXVII. established the right of Europeans to equal rights with the Boers.

By Article XXVIII. persons who entered the country during the English rule were to be exempt from compulsory military service on registering their names with the British Resident.

The remaining Articles contained provisions for the extradition of criminals, the payment of debts in currency, and the validity of licences and grants of land issued or made by the British Government.

The last Article but one, XXXII., provided that the Convention should be null and void unless ratified by a newly-elected Volksraad within three months, and the XXXIIIrd and concluding Article stipulated that thereupon all British troops should evacuate the country, and the munitions of war agreed to be delivered up should be handed over.

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CHAPTER XVI.

FROM THE SIGNING OF THE CONVENTION TO ITS

RATIFICATION.

Mr. White taken up by the Conservatives-The loyalists vituperated— Mr. Gladstone's language-Meeting in Willis's Rooms-Mr. Courtney and his connection with the Boers-Mr. Donald Currie and the South African Association-Mr. Gladstone thinks the peace saved us from other blood-guiltiness-His letter to the loyalists-Mr. White's reply-No answer made by Mr. Gladstone-The debate in the Lords-The debate in the Commons-The Leeds speechThe Guildhall speech-Meeting of the Boer Volksraad-Condemnation of the Convention-Demand for modifications-Temporary firmness of the Government-Lord Kimberley's reservationsRatification of the Convention.

ON my arrival in England I found Mr. White and his co-delegate had definitely placed their cause in the hands of the Conservative party. Mr. White was hot with the sense of the wrongs done to him and his English fellow-subjects; and being thoroughly unused to the conditions of political society in England, I gave him a strong caution before he left Natal not to allow himself to be entangled in the meshes of party politics. At first he adhered to my advice. He waited a whole week for Lord Kimberley. At the end of the week he secured an interview, but when he had poured out the story of the wrongs of the loyalists, the only satis faction he got from the Colonial Secretary was the chilling remark, "Mr. White, you are too pronounced."

Mr. White said he thereupon told Lord Kimberley that he would be pronounced if he had lost his property and sat by the death-bed of men who had fought for England, and whose relatives had been abandoned; and, then, turning on his heel, he left the office in disgust, and went to Lord Salisbury, the leader of the Opposition, who took his cause up heartily. At first I was disposed to blame Mr. White for his precipitancy, but when I discovered how the Liberal press and the keener politicians of their party were vilifying the loyalists, I felt that he could not have done otherwise. The epithets showered upon the loyalists were of the choicest nature, and to see the manner in which they were rated and the Boers praised, one would have imagined that the latter had been assisting us, and the former had been in arms against us. Even Mr. Gladstone himself, who had executed his last volte-face, and had been followed with scrupulous obedience by his party, descended to the language of Billingsgate, and stigmatized the unfortunate English in the Transvaal as "interested contractors and land-jobbers."1

The day after my return a great meeting was held at Willis's Rooms, under the auspices of the Conservative party, and a series of meetings followed in different parts of the country at which Mr. White and Mr. Zietsman addressed the public. Previous to the meeting at Willis's Rooms I had an interview with Mr. White, and among other things I told him that Mr. Walker, who had been a prisoner in Heidelberg, had told our committee that while he was there Bok, the Secretary of the Boer Triumvirate, showed him a letter from Mr. Courtney, who was a subordinate

In his speech on the motion of Sir Michael Hicks-Beach in the House of Commons.

member of the Ministry, urging the Boers to persevere, as their claims would be certain to be recognized in the end. Mr. Walker said that this letter was written during the war, but I believed and still believe that it was a letter written before the war, and shown by Mr. Bok to Mr. Hawkins of Pretoria two or three days before the outbreak occurred. Mr. White appeared to have heard about this letter from other sources, and at the meeting he blurted out the name of Mr. Courtney. That gentleman challenged the production of the letter, but it could not be produced, it being in the hands of the Boers, and Mr. White was at once stigmatized as untruthful. That a letter from Mr. Courtney was in the possession of the Boers is indubitable, but that that letter was written during the war I do not believe. Either Mr. Walker was deceived by Mr. Bok, or he made a mistake in the date. Some of the more extreme members of the Liberal party went very near the verge of treason in forming the Transvaal Independence Committee, but I do not think any of them-not even Mr. Courtneywould have been so mad or insensate as to be in actual correspondence with rebels in arms.

Another English politician who was accused of active sympathy with the Boers was Mr., now Sir, Donald Currie. He was accused of being the secret means by which negotiations were inaugurated between the Government and the rebels. He was directly charged with this at a meeting of the South African Association, a body composed of leading South African merchants, and some of the members threatened not to ship any of their goods by his steamers in consequence. Mr. Currie denied the accusation, and his denial was at length accepted.

The meetings in the country were successful, but no

manifestations of public feeling, and no considerations of injustice produced any effect on the Government. Mr. Gladstone, who had forgotten his former.statements, worked himself into a passion of magnanimity towards the Boers. He wrote a letter to a Mr. Tomkinson for publication in the papers, in which he said: "I can assure you that when we come to the discussion in the House of Commons, I shall adopt no apologetic tone. It was a question of saving the country from sheer blood-guiltiness."

He also sent a letter to the loyalists, in reply to a memorial addressed to him, calling attention to the promise he had made that the Transvaal should not be given back. He said he did not think the language of his letter to Kruger and Joubert, written prior to the war, which contained the promise, justified such a description, and "he was not sure" in what manner or to what degree the liberty to manage their local affairs which he then stated the Government wished to confer on the white population of the Transvaal, differed from the settlement made by the Convention. He said the Government had hoped the object they had in view might have been attained by a South African confederation, but that hope had been frustrated, and the insurrection proved in the most unequivocal manner that a majority of the white settlers were opposed to British rule. It was "thus" shown that the original ground on which the Transvaal was annexed, namely, the acquiescence of the whites, was without foundation, and therefore the Government had thought it their duty to avail themselves of the earliest inclinations shown by the Boers to terminate the war. acknowledged the loyal co-operation of the inhabitants of Pretoria and other places with her Majesty's forces,

He