FICE AND IN OFFICE

But British speeches and proclamations had ceased to impress the
Boers. They had had too many of them, and they began to think the
British Government a somewhat knock-kneed institution whose joints
had ceased to hold together. Sir Garnet Wolseley, however, with
characteristic energy and determination, dealt with the malcontents
one by one, converting them, and causing them to sensibly consider
on which side their bread was buttered. Indeed, so diplomatically
did he conduct his work, that a sop was given to the aggressive
Pretorius, who, instead of being put in prison as he deserved, was
offered a seat on the Executive Council, with a salary attached.
This he was inclined to jump at, but, at the time, public feeling
ran too high to allow of his making a decision. The fact was that
the political speeches delivered by Mr. Gladstone in the south of
Scotland, during the months of November and December 1879, were
putting a new complexion on affairs. They were reprinted all the
world over, and they were profusely circulated among the Boers. The
Boer leaders and obstructionists at once saw in this British
statesman their saviour, and were convinced that, on the return of
Mr. Gladstone to power, their independence would be assured. They
therefore sent Messrs. Kruger and Joubert as a deputation to the
Cape, and these two gentlemen persuaded the Cape Parliament to
reject the Confederation Scheme then being proposed by Sir Bartle
Frere. Selections from the attacks on the Government, from which the
Boers then derived their encouragement and support, are here
reprinted in order that the sincerity of Mr. Gladstone's attitude
may be examined.

Speaking in Edinburgh, he said of the Government:--

"They have annexed in Africa the Transvaal territory, inhabited by a
free European, Christian, Republican community, which they have
thought proper to bring within the limits of a Monarchy, although
out of 8000 persons in that Republic qualified to vote upon the
subject, we are told--and I have never seen the statement officially
contradicted--that 6500 protested against it. These are the
circumstances under which we undertake to transform Republicans into
subjects of a Monarchy."

Now, Sir T. Shepstone's despatches show that the ground on which the
Transvaal was annexed was because the State was drifting into
anarchy, was bankrupt, and was about to be destroyed by native
tribes. He said "that most thinking men in the