reasonable that any European nation or America would risk a
war with Great Britain for the purpose of assisting the Boers, yet there
was hardly one burgher who did not cling steadfastly to the opinion that
the war would be ended in such a manner. The idea had evidently been
rooted in their mind that Russia would take advantage of Great Britain's
entanglement in South Africa to occupy Herat and Northern India, and when
a newspaper item to that effect appeared it was gravely presumed to
indicate the beginning of the end. Some over-zealous Irishmen assured the
Boers that, in the event of a South African war, their fellow-countrymen
in the United States would invade Canada and involve Great Britain in an
imbroglio over the Atlantic in order to save British America. For a few
weeks the chimera buoyed up the Boers, but when nothing more than an
occasional newspaper rumour was heard concerning it the rising in Ashanti
was then looked upon as being the hoped-for boon. The departure of the
three delegates to Europe and America was an encouraging sign to them, and
it was firmly believed that they would be able to induce France, Russia,
or America to offer mediation or intervention. The two Boer newspapers,
the Pretoria _Volksstem_ and the Johannesburg _Standard and Diggers'
News_, dwelt at length upon every favourable token of foreign assistance,
however trifling, and attempted to strengthen hopes which at hardly any
time seemed capable of realisation. It was not until after the war had
been in progress for more than six months that the Boers saw the futility
of placing faith in foreign aid, and afterwards they fought like stronger
men.

The consuls who represented the foreign Governments at Pretoria, and
through whom the Boers made representations for peace, were an
exceptionally able body of men, and their duties were as varied as they
were arduous. The French and German consuls were busied with the care of
the vast mining interests of their countrymen, besides the partial
guardianship of the hundreds of French and German volunteers in the Boer
army. They were called upon to entertain noblemen as well as bankrupts; to
bandage wounds and to bury the dead; to find lost relatives and to care
for widows and orphans. In times of peace the duties of a consul in
Pretoria were not light, but during hostilities they were tenfold heavier.
To the American consul, Adelbert S. Hay, and his associate, John G.
Coolidge, fell more work than to