pression of this ruffian, was
baffled by fever and horse sickness. Colonel Lanyon in the following
June returned to the attack, and was on the eve of success, when Sir
Garnet Wolseley (who arrived late in that month) sent orders to
cease operations. These orders he found, on reaching the
Transvaal, to be a mistake. Sekukuni was not a person to be trifled
with nor ignored, so the campaign began again in November, with the
result that within a period of eight days the chief's stronghold was
taken and himself made prisoner. About fifty Europeans and some five
hundred Swazi allies were killed or wounded.

Here we see, within one year, how much was done for the protection
of the Transvaal at the cost of British money and British blood.
Looking back, it is easy to perceive that, but for our intervention,
the South African Republic would have been slowly but effectually
swallowed up. Cetchwayo and Sekukuni between them would have made a
meal of the Transvaal.

The brilliant and complete success of Sir Garnet Wolseley was highly
praised, and the names of Colonel Lanyon, Captain Clark, R.A., and
Captain Carrington especially mentioned as deserving a share of the
credit for the accurate information they had collected during the
previous months.

So much having been done for the security of the Boers and for the
maintenance of British prestige, it is no marvel that Sir Garnet
Wolseley thought himself justified in expressing the trend of
British policy in plain terms. At the dinner given at Pretoria on
the 17th of December 1879 he took the opportunity of making the
British programme well understood. He declared with emphasis that
there could be no question of resigning the sovereignty of the
country. "There is no Government," he said, "Whig or Tory, Liberal,
Conservative, or Radical, who would dare under any circumstances to
give back this country. They would not dare, because the English
people would not allow them!" At that time it was evident that Sir
Garnet had never heard the story of the philanthropic Belarmine, an
individual who gave himself to the she-bear to save her and her
young ones from starvation. Or, if the tale was known to him, he
probably took it for what it was worth, and never foresaw that the
British Government would emulate the action of the self-sacrificing
lunatic, and spend precious blood for the sole purpose of nourishing
and resuscitating the powers of a languishing enemy.

MR. GLADSTONE OUT OF OF