ses and bring ruin upon some members of
the family without seriously disturbing and distressing the rest. The
physical boundaries separating the British colonies from the Republics
made no separation as far as the people were concerned. In speech,
religion, character, and blood, the Dutch are essentially one throughout
South Africa. And it was owing to this fact that the Cape Dutch felt for
the Republicans as none else could have felt. Their strong sympathies
took the form of practical assistance when they shouldered their rifles
and took the field against the enemies of the Republics. But this was
not done before their protests, petitions, and all other constitutional
measures had signally failed, and were utterly ignored by the British
Government. Then only did they resort to aggressive measures.

However strongly some might condemn their action, still we believe that
any other people, even the English themselves, and they probably to a
far greater extent, would, in like circumstances, have acted similarly.
If England had been invaded by a foreign foe, and English homes
destroyed and burnt _en masse_, and English women and children removed
in thousands to disease-stricken camps, and English officers and
soldiers court-martialled or deported to distant islands and countries,
we ask, would Scotland, for instance, have looked on with stolid
indifference and cold apathy? Would she not, as well as all other true
Englishmen, wherever they were, have protested most emphatically against
such a war; and if their protests were slighted, would they not have
assisted their fellow-Englishmen? Verily they would, were they subjects
or not of the invaders.

This is exactly what the Cape Dutch did when some of them rose in
rebellion. Their loyalty was gradually undermined as the war assumed the
character of conquest and extermination. It was too much for many a
Colonial to be a silent spectator when thousands of women and children
pined away in concentration camps; and the military authorities,
apparently wreaking vengeance on these because the burghers would not
surrender, positively refused to allow these Boer families to reside
with their relatives or friends in the Cape Colony, or live _at their
own cost_ in garrisoned towns, where they would have no intercourse with
the burghers. When the weak and defenceless became the victims of the
war, and received such treatment, the Cape Dutch were incited to violent
actions. They rose to