s follows at a banquet given in his honour at
Pretoria:--

"I am told that these men (the Boers) are told to keep on agitating in
this way, for a change of Government in England may give them again
the old order of things. Nothing can show greater ignorance of English
politics than such an idea; I tell you that there is no Government, Whig
or Tory, Liberal, Conservative, or Radical, _who would dare under any
circumstances to give back this country_. They would not dare, because
the English people would not allow them. To give back the country, what
would it mean? To give it back to external danger, to the danger of
attack by hostile tribes on its frontier, and who, if the English
Government were removed for one day, would make themselves felt the
next. Not an official of Government paid for months; it would mean
national bankruptcy. No taxes being paid, the same thing recurring again
which had existed before would mean danger without, anarchy and civil
war within, every possible misery; the strangulation of trade, and the
destruction of property."

It is very amusing to read this passage by the light of after events.
On other occasions Sir Garnet Wolseley will probably not be quite so
confident as to the future when it is to be controlled by a Radical
Government.

This explicit and straightforward statement of Sir Garnet's produced
a great effect on the loyal inhabitants of the Transvaal, which was
heightened by the publication of the following telegram from the
Secretary of State:--"You may fully confirm explicit statements made
from the time to time as to inability of Her Majesty's Government to
entertain _any proposal_ for withdrawal of the Queen's sovereignty."

On the faith of these declarations many Englishmen migrated to the
Transvaal and settled there, whilst those who were in the country now
invested all their means, being confident that they would not lose
their property through its being returned to the Boers. The excitement
produced by Mr. Gladstone's speeches began to quiet down and be
forgotten for the time, arrear taxes were paid up by the malcontents,
and generally the aspect of affairs was such, in Sir Garnet Wolseley's
opinion, as justified him in writing, in April 1880, to the Secretary of
State expressing his belief that the agitation was dying out.[*] Indeed,
so sanguine was he on that point that he is reported to have advised the
withdrawal of the cavalry regiment stationed in the territory, a