warded the same fate to the
land of the Boers when it in turn was occupied by us? The Boers did not
use their temporary victory in any moderate spirit. At the end of
January 1900, Dr. Leyds, while on his visit to Berlin, said:

'I believe that England will have to give us back a good part of the
territory formerly snatched away from us.... The Boers will probably
demand the cession of the strip of coast between Durban and Delagoa Bay,
with the harbours of Lucia and Kosi. The Orange Free State and the
Transvaal are to be united and to form one State, together with parts of
Natal and the northern districts of Cape Colony.'--(_Daily News_ Berlin
correspondent, February 1, March 16, 1900.)

They were to go to the sea, and nothing but going to the sea would
satisfy them. The war would end when their flag flew over Cape Town. But
there came a turn of the tide. The resistance of the garrisons, the
tenacity of the relieving forces, and the genius of Lord Roberts altered
the whole situation. The Boers were driven back to the first of their
capitals. Then for the first time there came from them those proposals
for peace, which were never heard when the game was going in their
favour. Here is President Kruger's telegram:

'THE PRESIDENTS OF THE ORANGE FREE STATE AND OF THE
SOUTH AFRICAN REPUBLIC TO THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY.

'Bloemfontein: March 5, 1900.

'The blood and the tears of the thousands who have suffered by this war,
and the prospect of all the moral and economic ruin with which South
Africa is now threatened, make it necessary for both belligerents to ask
themselves dispassionately, and as in the sight of the Triune God, for
what they are fighting, and whether the aim of each justifies all this
appalling misery and devastation.

'With this object, and in view of the assertions of various British
statesmen to the effect that this war was begun and is being carried on
with the set purpose of undermining Her Majesty's authority in South
Africa, and of setting up an Administration over all South Africa
independent of Her Majesty's Government, we consider it our duty
solemnly to declare that this war was undertaken solely as a defensive
measure to safeguard the threatened independence of the South African
Republic, and is only continued in order to secure and safeguard the
incontestable independence of both Republics as Sovereign International
States, and to