THE ORANGE RIVER AT NORVAL'S PONT.

Photo by Wilson, Aberdeen.

LAING'S NEK

Since we have been tracing the causes of the Boer rebellion, it may be advisable to refer to a letter written on the 28th of December 1880 by Sir Bartle Frere to Mr. F. Greenwood, editor of the St. James's Gazette. He therein throws a most important light on the political position. He wrote: "In 1879, when I was among the Boers in the Transvaal, I found that the real wire-pullers of their Committee were foreigners of various nationalities, notably some Hollanders (not Africanders), imbued with German Socialist Republicanism, and an Irishman of the name of Aylward. I was told he was a man of great natural ability, educated as a solicitor, an ex-Fenian pardoned under another name (Murphy, I think), for turning Queen's evidence against others who had murdered the policeman at Manchester. Emigrating to the Diamond Fields, he was tried, convicted, and suffered imprisonment there for homicide. When he came out of prison he betook himself to the Transvaal and had a command of foreign free lances under Mr. Burgers, then President of the Transvaal Republic, in his unsuccessful attempt to take Secocoeni's stronghold. After the annexation of the Transvaal he came to England and published one of the few readable books on the Transvaal, and went out to Natal during the darkest hours of our Zulu troubles, seeking employment; but he was an impossible man, and was urging the Boers to rise at the same time that he was offering his services to me and Lord Chelmsford. Finally he settled at Pietermaritzburg, where he was, when I last heard of him, as editor of the Witness, writing anti-English republicanism and sedition with much ability, especially when opposing the Cape Government and its governor, whom he never forgave for warning the Boers against following Fenian advice. When I was in the Transvaal and afterwards I found him always connected with any opposition to the English Government. He knew all the leaders of the simple-minded but very suspicious Boers, and had gained their ear, so that he had no difficulty in persuading them to reject any good advice I offered them—'Wait-a-bit' being always the most acceptable suggestion you can offer to a Boer.

"Directly I heard of the attack on our troops in the Transvaal, I felt assured that my old acquaintance was pulling the wires with a view to create a diversion in favour of his old colleagues in Ireland.

"The attack took place apparently near the farm of Solomon Prinsloo, one of the most bitter malcontent Boers, who was always a firebrand, and who, when I visited the Boer camp in 1879, was with difficulty held back by Pretorius and Kruger from directing an attack upon us in Pretoria. I very much doubt whether, without some such external instigation, the Boers would have broken out....

"The facts I have mentioned and many more about Aylward are on record in Scotland Yard, and in the Colonial Office, and I am anxious you should know the truth and not attribute too much of the blame in this sad business to the unfortunate, misguided Boers, the victims of his bad advice, still less to any fault of Colonel Lanyon's administration."

Sir Bartle was right in his conjecture, for Aylward had joined the insurgents and was one of the acknowledged leaders of Joubert's staff.

Major-General Hope Crealock, in a letter to Sir Bartle, wrote (January 7, 1881): "A young Irishman named S——, who knew Aylward in Natal, and who was under my command in the Natal Pioneers, called on me to-night and told me Aylward formerly used to boast of being a Fenian, and vowed he would pay the English Government off for what he had got, by raising the Boers whenever Ireland was rising; and within the last few days has written to him saying he gloried in being one of the instigators of the present Boer revolt, &c., &c. He wrote from Utrecht...."

It will be seen from these quotations that our relations with the Transvaal, hostile as they may have been, were scarcely true relations—that the real enmity and rancour, the blood-spilling and wretchedness that commenced at this period, and are at the moment of writing still continuing, were due, firstly, to party spirit in Great Britain, and secondly, to the machinations of adventurers, who, having no status elsewhere, put the ignorance of a race of farmers to their own vile uses.