lk politics than to sow mealies. Some attribute the
discontent among the Boers to the postponement of the carrying out
of the annexation proclamation promises with reference to the free
institutions to be granted to the country, but in my opinion it had
little or nothing to do with it. The Boers never understood the question
of responsible government, and never wanted that institution; what
they did want was to be free of all English control, and this they said
twenty times in the most outspoken language. I think there is little
doubt the causes I have indicated are the real sources of the agitation,
though there must be added to them their detestation of our mode of
dealing with natives, and of being forced to pay taxes regularly, and
also the ceaseless agitation of the Cape wire-pullers, through their
agents the Hollanders, and their organs in the press.

On the return of Messrs. Kruger and Jorissen to the Transvaal, the
latter gentleman resumed his duties as Attorney-General, on which
occasion, if I remember aright, I myself had the honour of administering
to him the oath of allegiance to Her Majesty, that he afterwards kept
so well. The former reported the proceedings of the deputation to a
Boer meeting, when he took a very different tone to that in which he
addressed Lord Carnarvon, announcing that if there existed a majority of
the people in favour of independence, he still was Vice-President of the
country.

Both these gentlemen remained for some time in the pay of the British
Government, Mr. Jorissen as Attorney-General, and Mr. Kruger as member
of the Executive Council. The Government, however, at length found it
desirable to dispense with their services, though on different
grounds. Mr. Jorissen had, like several other members of the Republican
Government, been a clergyman, and was quite unfit to hold the post of
Attorney-General in an important colony like the Transvaal, where legal
questions were constantly arising requiring all the attention of a
trained mind; and after he had on several occasions been publicly
admonished from the bench, the Government retired him on liberal terms.
Needless to say, his opposition to English rule then became very bitter.
Mr. Kruger's appointment expired by law in November 1877, and the
Government did not think it advisable to re-employ him. The terms of his
letter of dismissal can be found on page 135 of Blue Book (c. 144),
and involving as they do a serious charge of misre