hought of arming when becoming
alarmed for the future by the Jameson attempt, and that statement could
only have been intended to mislead the uninformed at a distance. "_Qui
s'excuse s'accuse_" is applicable in this as well as in other ruses for
hiding those sinister Bond aims and to pose as the guileless and
victimized Boer nation. It was just the other way about--it was England
who was unprepared and exposed to imminent risk of aggression on the
part of the Boer combination.

What had amazed and actually exasperated many Boers was the ludicrously
puny attempt made by Jameson and the Johannesburg revolutionary concert.
It was at the time thought that the invasion of some 700 men was only a
first installment, and that much larger developments were in preparation
to attack the State. It was for that reason that only a few batteries of
artillery were despatched at a late moment to Doornkop under Commandant
Trichaart to operate against Jameson's party, while the bulk was held in
reserve with an extensive mobilization of burghers to resist other
supposed opposition of an altogether more formidable but yet undefined
character. When nothing further transpired, the feeling uppermost with
the people was unbounded derision at that impotent fiasco, and a
loathing contempt for the cowering Johannesburg rabble who betrayed and
sacrificed the insensate doctor. It was loudly asserted that the
combined forces of the two Republics were competent to resist an
invasion a hundred times stronger than the one so foolishly attempted;
but, with cooler counsels, it was resolved to adopt the appealing
attitude of the deeply injured party who miraculously and providentially
escaped a great national peril. Upon these lines the raid incident
afforded an immense advantage to Afrikaner Bond tactics, and an impulse
to Bond propaganda which enormously increased Boer partisanship,
inflicting at the same time a fatal check upon the diplomacy of England
and upon the essential peace-preserving measures for safeguarding her
South African interests. The circumstances, however, served to embolden
many hitherto undecided sympathisers into openly declared and vehement
Boer partisans, revealing the singular spectacle, among English people
even, of a morbid cult apparently ready to sacrifice their nation just
to vindicate their judicial dicta about Boer innocence and to parade
their own darling sense of shocked and violated national honour.

Quite other and mor