“As our terms have been refused by Botha, they are of course withdrawn, and his Majesty’s Government do not think it advisable that you or Kitchener should reopen negotiations. Should Botha or other leaders make any further suggestions of their own accord Kitchener will, of course, forward them to us without expressing any opinion upon them to those who make them. But neither Mrs. Botha nor any one else should be led to suppose that we could consider terms more favourable to the Boers than those which have been rejected. The Secretary of State for War will send a copy of this to Kitchener.”
That the negotiations were looked upon with disfavour by all parties concerned is undoubted. A letter written by one of Reuter’s correspondents expresses the very general view taken by the British in the field:—
“The Parliamentary paper giving particulars of the peace negotiations has been eagerly read by all ranks of the Army. It is impossible to shut one’s eyes to the fact that the British forces now operating in South Africa are profoundly dissatisfied with them. On all hands, and from all ranks, the same complaint is heard, that they are too lenient, and are not calculated to bring permanent peace to South Africa. There is no bitterness against the Boers; that feeling has long ago died out, but when the men came to read the terms of peace proposed by the British Government, they remembered their dead comrades whose graves mark the line of march, and asked themselves: ‘Is it for this that they have died?’ The Army, which has undergone countless hardships and dangers, is less articulate than a municipal body in England, but surely it should have its say. The regular Army, perhaps, is expected not to think or to express its thought about politics, but to fight, and only to fight; but the South Africans, the Canadians, and the Australians will give expression to their sentiments. They declare that in the terms of peace offered by the British Government there are all the elements of future rebellion and unrest. ‘Give the Boers,’ they say, ‘even more than we have promised them, but let it be as a free gift after surrender, and not as a condition of surrender.’ Curiously enough, these sentiments are shared entirely by the Burghers who have surrendered, and who are only waiting for the end of hostilities to take their places as British subjects, determined to do their utmost for the peaceful development of a country which, under British rule, will be as much theirs as anybody else’s. One of them, speaking to me the other day, put forward his view of the case. ‘If the British grant terms to those burghers now under arms,’ he said, ‘they at once establish for all time a confession of weakness. We shall tell each other and our children that we have never been beaten, and, as we increase in numbers, the tales of former prowess and invincibility will perpetuate a national feeling. If you allow burghers to carry rifles after surrender you will have petty revolts for the next ten years. There is no need of a Mauser or a Lee-Metford to defend the burgher against the native. Give him a shot-gun or a revolver, and no native will molest him. The demand for the retention of arms is nothing more nor less than the result of a determination on the part of the Boers to use them against you at the very slightest provocation. To give them rifles is suicidal.’”
CHAPTER IV
IN THE WESTERN TRANSVAAL—JANUARY TO MAY
In the early part of the year we find Lord Methuen busily occupied in dealing with an incursion of the enemy from the south-western part of the Transvaal into Griqualand. Operating from Vryburg and Taungs, he, with his mobile columns, performed an incalculable amount of work. He withdrew the garrison from Schweitzer Reneke, routed the Boers that were surrounding Daniel’s Knil, provisioned the garrison of Kuruman, and eventually hunted De Villiers’ hordes into the Transvaal. That done, he marched in the beginning of February, viâ Wolmaranstad, to Klerksdorp, following up and dispersing the aforesaid hordes as he went. At Hartebeestefontein he came very violently into collision with them, and though they made a stout effort to resist his advance, he forced them to give way. His captures during these proceedings amounted to forty prisoners and many thousand head of stock. Lord Methuen reached Klerksdorp on the 19th of February and went on to Potchefstroom, where he commenced co-operating with the sweeping movements of Generals Babington and Cunningham. These officers, on General French’s departure from the western side of the Transvaal, held a line from Oliphant’s Nek to Ventersdorp and Potchefstroom, and kept an eye on the machinations of Delarey and other malcontents in these regions. In spite of their vigilance a concentration was effected in the Gatsrand on the 31st, and a small force at Modderfontein was overwhelmed by superior numbers before General Cunningham could come to its relief. Two more small columns, the one under Colonel Shekleton, South Lancashire Regiment, the other under Colonel Benson, R.A., were now placed at the disposal of General Cunningham to help in the work of clearing the ground between the western railway line and the Vaal.
At the end of February Lord Methuen’s force, together with the small column under Colonel Benson, was actively engaged in hunting bands of marauders in the triangle—Klerksdorp, Potchefstroom, Ventersdorp. On the 4th of March the troops marched from Klerksdorp towards Hoopstad, thence to withdraw the garrison. En route they, having left their convoy under strong escort on the road to Commando Drift, made a night descent on Wolmaranstad with the intention of liberating the British and Boer State prisoners who were known to be detained there. But at dawn when they arrived they discovered that the place was deserted! The sole, though not unimportant, result of their exertions was the capture of the Landdrost, Pearson, a person who had rendered himself notorious in connection with the cases of Messrs. M’Lachlan and Boyd, who with three burghers were shot at Wolmaranstad. The particulars of the dastardly murder of these men must be recorded, as they serve to show the innate brutality of the Boers, which in the earlier part of the war had been suppressed in hope to seduce the sympathy of the Powers. The news of the execution of five British subjects—so-called rebels—by Delarey’s commando was brought to Klerksdorp by Mrs. M’Lachlan, whose husband, father, and brother-in-law had been among the victims. Most of them were burghers who had surrendered or left the country prior to the war, while the others were alleged to have taken up arms. The man Boyd, a British subject, had been detained in jail since July 1900 by the Landdrost, who induced him, with two others, to indite a message to the English praying them to come to their rescue. This was afterwards made the plea for sentencing the three to death. Among others sentenced were two burghers named Theunissen, well-known farmers of Klerksdorp, who had surrendered with General Andreas Cronje’s commando in June, and had taken the oath of neutrality and refused to break it. Mrs. M’Lachlan, the daughter of the elder Theunissen, gave an account of her loss, narrating how she had taken coffins to the place of execution to bury the bodies of her father, brother, and husband, to whom she had been married only two years, while another lady made the following statement:—“The Boers have forty of our men prisoners there. Eight or ten have been condemned to be shot. They were tried by the late Landdrost of Klerksdorp, a man named Heethling, in conjunction with other members of the Court. The sentences were confirmed by Generals Smuts and Delarey, who sent men to carry them out. The four who were shot were Mr. Theunissen, his son, his son-in-law, Mr. M’Lachlan, and Mr. Boyd. From first to last they were most brutally treated. The execution was a sad spectacle. The prisoners, on being taken out of jail, grasped one another’s hands. They were placed in a row and shot down one by one. Mr. Boyd received three bullets, but was still alive when put into the grave. The Boers then fired again, and all was over. It was nearly being my husband’s fate, but, thank God, he escaped. Mr. George Savage was also condemned to be shot, but he has been insane since his trial. His wife has gone with Mrs. Pienaar to try to get the sentence commuted. Mrs. Pienaar being with her may possibly have some influence.”
From all accounts it appeared that the man Pearson, who was captured by Lord Methuen, was prime actor in the barbarous drama, and, handcuffed, he was removed to await his trial.