[Footnote 208: Cd. 109.]

[Sidenote: The British reply.]

Lord Salisbury's reply, sent from the Foreign Office on March 11th, is
as follows:

"I have the honour to acknowledge Your Honours' telegram dated
the 5th of March, from Bloemfontein, of which the purport is
principally to demand that Her Majesty's Government shall
recognise the 'incontestable independence' of the South African
Republic and Orange Free State 'as sovereign international
states,' and to offer, on those terms, to bring the war to a
conclusion.

"In the beginning of October last peace existed between Her
Majesty and the two Republics under the Conventions which then
were in existence. A discussion had been proceeding for some
months between Her Majesty's Government and the South African
Republic, of which the object was to obtain redress for certain
very serious grievances under which British residents in the
South African Republic were suffering. In the course of these
negotiations the South African Republic had, to the knowledge of
Her Majesty's Government, made considerable armaments, and the
latter had, consequently, taken steps to provide corresponding
reinforcements to the British garrisons of Capetown and Natal. No
infringement of the rights guaranteed by the Conventions had up
to that point taken place on the British side. Suddenly, at two
days' notice, the South African Republic, after issuing an
insulting ultimatum, declared war upon Her Majesty, and the
Orange Free State, with whom there had not even been any
discussion, took a similar step. Her Majesty's dominions were
immediately invaded by the two Republics, siege was laid to three
towns within the British frontier, a large portion of the two
colonies was overrun, with great destruction to property and
life, and the Republics claimed to treat the inhabitants of
extensive portions of Her Majesty's dominions as if those
dominions had been annexed to one or other of them. In
anticipation of these operations, the South African Republic had
been accumulating for many years past military stores on an
enormous scale, which by their character could only have been
intended for use against Great Britain.

"Your Honours make some observations of a negative character upon
the object with which these prepa