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My husband reached Pretoria Sunday evening, April 26. The information that we had received en route, regarding the pleas of guilty entered by the imprisoned Reformers, was confirmed by his associates: the other three leaders, Messrs. Rhodes, Farrar, and Phillips, had entered a plea of guilty under count one of the indictment for high treason, the fifty-nine Reformers entering a like plea of guilty under the count of lese-majesté. As conjectured by us when we heard of this action of the Reformers, the prisoners had received certain assurances before making such pleas:
First.—That they should not be tried under the comparatively obsolete Roman Dutch Law, which punished the crime of treason with death; but they would be tried and punished under, and in accordance with, the code laws of the Transvaal Republic, which imposed penalties of fine and imprisonment for the crime charged in the indictment.
Second.—The leaders were further assured that this action on their part would measurably mitigate the sentences of the other fifty-nine Reformers.
On Monday, the 27th, the Court reconvened in the market hall, the imported Judge Gregorowsky occupying the bench.
Mr. Hammond took his place with the three leaders, attended by his physician, Dr. Scholtz, who remained at his side during the entire trial.
After some preliminary matters were disposed of, Mr. Hammond, actuated by the same influences that were brought to bear on his associates, entered a plea of guilty to count one of the indictment, and placed his signature to the written statement which had been previously signed by Messrs. Rhodes, Phillips, and Farrar.
This written paper was in substance as follows:—
That for a number of years the Uitlanders had earnestly and peacefully sought relief for their grievances by the constitutional right of petition. That what they asked was only what was conceded to new-comers by every other South African Government.
That petition after petition was placed before the authorities—one bearing 40,000 signatures, asking alleviation of their burdens and wrongs; that they could never obtain a hearing, and that the provisions of law already deemed obnoxious and unfair were being made more stringent; and, realising that they would never be accorded the rights they were entitled to receive, it was determined to make a demonstration of force in support of their just demands.
The statement then recites the coming of Jameson against their express commands and understanding with him, and all the subsequent acts of the Transvaal Government, the High Commissioner, and De Wet, Her Majesty's Agent, which are now matters of history.
The paper concluded as follows:—