The circumstances of this surrender were so suspicious, that it is hard to acquit the man who was responsible for it of a definite act of treachery; and the case against him is all the more grave from the fact that Vilonel, who was at that time serving a term of imprisonment for high treason, had a share in the transaction.
Prinsloo's surrender included General Crowther, Commandants Paul De Villiers, Ferreira, Joubert, Du Plooij, Potgieter, Crowther, Van der Merve, and Roux; and about three thousand men.
The most melancholy circumstance about the whole affair was that, when the surrender was made, some of the burghers had reached the farm of Salamon Raath, and were thus as good as free, and yet had to ride back, and to go with the others to lay down their arms.
As to Roux, the deposed Commander-in-Chief, there is a word to be added. I had always heard that he was a very cautious man, and yet on this occasion he acted like a child, going in person to General Hunter's camp to protest against the surrender, on the ground that it was he (Roux), and not Prinsloo, that was Commander-in-Chief. One can hardly believe that he really thought it possible thus to nullify Prinsloo's act. But he certainly behaved as if he did, and his ingenuous conduct must have afforded much amusement to the English general.
If any one is in doubt as to what was the result of General Roux's absurd escapade, I have only to say that the English had one prisoner the more!
Those who escaped were but few. Of all our large forces, there were only Generals Froneman, Fourie and De Villiers (of Harrismith); Commandants Hasebroek, Olivier, Visser, Kolbe, and a few others; a small number of burghers, and six or seven guns, that did not fall into the hands of the English.
What, then, is to be our judgment on this act of Prinsloo and of the other chief officers in command of our forces behind the Roodebergen?
That it was nothing short of an act of murder, committed on the Government, the country, and the nation, to surrender three thousand men in such a way. Even the burghers themselves cannot be held to have been altogether without guilt, though they can justly plead that they were only obeying orders.
The sequel to Prinsloo's surrender was on a par with it. A large number of burghers from Harrismith and a small part of the Vrede commando, although they had already made good their escape, rode quietly from their farms into Harrismith, and there surrendered to General Sir Hector Macdonald.—One could gnash one's teeth to think that a nation should so readily rush to its own ruin!