Footnote 22: De Transvaalse Oorlog, pp. 7 and 8.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 23: Cecil Rhodes: His Political Life and Speeches. By Vindex; p. 533. Borckenhagen had just died.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 24: Ons Land, reputed to be controlled by Hofmeyr himself, and certainly the recognised organ of the Bond, published a pæan of triumph over the surrender of Dr. Jameson's troopers at Doornkop. "Afrikanderdom has awakened to a sense of earnestness which we have not observed since the heroic war of liberty in 1881. From the Limpopo, as far as Capetown, the second Majuba has given birth to a new inspiration and a new movement amongst our people in South Africa.... The flaccid and cowardly imperialism that had already begun to dilute and weaken our national blood, gradually turned aside before the new current that permeated our people.... Now or never the foundation of a wide-embracing nationalism must be laid.... The partition wall has disappeared ... never has the necessity for a policy of a colonial and republican union been greater; now the psychological moment has arrived; now our people have awakened all over South Africa; a new glow illumines our hearts; let us lay the foundation-stone of a real United South Africa on the soil of a pure and all-comprehensive national sentiment."[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 25: 1896.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 26: Mr. Bodley, in his Coronation of King Edward VII., remarks that of the seventy Balliol scholars elected during the mastership of Jowett (1870-1893) only three had at that time (1902) "attained eminence in any branch of public life." These three were Mr. H. H. Asquith, Dr. Charles Gore (then Bishop of Worcester), and Lord Milner.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 27: The incident is otherwise interesting as affording the first sign of that confidence of the British population in Lord Milner, which, steadily increasing as the final and inevitable struggle approached, earned for him at length the unfaltering support of British South Africa. After the Rand celebrations were over, he was informed that his advice had been put into effect with "very considerable difficulty." The argument which had prevailed was this: "The new High Commissioner is a tested man of affairs; we all look to him to put British interests on a solid basis; and as we do this, let us obey him in a matter like this."[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 28: Apart from the question of the validity of the preamble to the Pretoria Convention (1881), two Conventions—the London Convention (1884), and the Swaziland Convention (1894)—were in force between the South African Republic and Great Britain. The relations of the Imperial Government to the Free State were regulated by the Bloemfontein Convention (1854). This latter and the Sand River Convention (1852), were the Conventions of Grey's time.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 29: These two men, now Colonel Sir Aubrey Woolls-Sampson and Major W. D. "Karri" Davies, had refused to sign the petition of appeal—an act of submission which President Krüger required of the Johannesburg Reformers, before he released them from Pretoria gaol. They did so on the ground that the Imperial Government had made itself responsible for their safety; since they and the other Reformers, with the town of Johannesburg, had laid down their arms on the faith of Lord Rosmead's declaration that he would obtain reasonable reforms from President Krüger for the Uitlanders.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 30: In the question of the Swaziland border, the affair of Bunu, and the continued and increasing ill-treatment of the Cape Boys, the Boer Government manifested its old spirit of aggression and duplicity. All these matters involved Lord Milner in anxious and wearisome negotiations, which, however, he contrived by mingled firmness and address to keep within the limits of friendly discussion.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 31: This short despatch has been given practically in extenso. It was not published in the Blue-books, but it was communicated to the Press some three months after it had been received.[Back to Main Text]