near Reitz,
a camp of women, falsely reported as a convoy to your Excellency,
was taken by your troops. This was rescued again by us, whilst
your troops took shelter behind our women, and when your
reinforcement came up, they opened fire with guns and small arms on
that camp, notwithstanding the fact that they knew it contained
women only.

I can quote hundreds of cases of this kind, but I do not think it
necessary, because if your Excellency will take the trouble to ask
any soldier who respects the truth, he will be compelled to confirm
my assertion. To say that the women are in your camps of their own
free will is not in accordance with the facts, and for any one to
assert that they are brought to the camps because the Boers are
unwilling to provide for the maintenance of their families as it is
said that His Excellency the Minister for War has asserted in
Parliament, is to make himself guilty of calumny, that will do more
harm to the calumniator than to us, and is a statement which I am
sure can never meet with your Excellency's approval.

Now, as regards the Proclamation itself, I can give your Excellency
the assurance as far as I am myself concerned, that it will make no
difference to my fulfilling my duty faithfully to the end, for I
shall be guided by my conscience and not by the enemy. Our country
is ruined; our hearths and homes are wrecked; our cattle are
looted, or killed by the thousand; our women and children are made
prisoners, insulted, and carried away by the troops and armed
Kaffirs; and many hundreds have already given their lives for the
freedom of their fatherland. Can we now--when it is merely a
question of banishment--shrink from our duty? Can we become
faithless to the hundreds of killed and prisoners, who, trusting in
our firmness, offered their lives and freedom for the fatherland?
Or can we lose faith in a just God, who has so wonderfully upheld
us till now? I am convinced that should we do so, we should be
despised not only by your Excellency and all honest men, but also
by ourselves.

I will close by giving your Excellency the assurance that no one is
more anxious than I to see peace restored, and I am therefore ready
to meet your Excellency at any time in order to discuss the terms
on which this peace can