Doubtful attitude of Boers towards Mission — H. R. H. attends debates in Volksraad — Paul Kruger — H. R. H.‘s projected journey home — Which was given up — Transvaal annexed — H. R. H. delivers copies of Proclamation and hoists British flag with Colonel Brooke.
Life at Pretoria was very gay during this Annexation period. We gave a ball, followed on the next evening by a children’s party; the President entertained us to lunch. The English in the town gave us a great dinner in the Volksraad Zaal at which “God save the Queen” was sung with enthusiasm, and there were many other entertainments.
But underneath all these festivities grave issues were maturing. Shortly after our arrival four hundred and fifty Boers rode into the town with the object of putting us back over the border. They were unarmed, but we discovered that they had left their rifles hidden in waggons not far away and guarded by a hundred and fifty men. If they really had any such intention, however, it evaporated after they had proceeded to the Government offices to ask what the English were doing in Pretoria and hoisted their flag in the Market Square. Then they talked a while and went away. One man, I remember, either on this or another occasion came and stood before the English flag which marked our camp, and shouted, “O Father, O Grandfather, O Great-grandfather, rise from the dead and drive away those red-handed wretches who have come to take our land from us, the land which we took from the Swartzels (black creatures)!”
Then he made a somewhat feeble rush for the said flag, but was collared by his friends and taken off, still apostrophising his ancestors. It all sounds very mock-heroic and absurd, and yet I repeat that there was much to justify this attitude of the Boers. After all they had taken the land and lived there nearly forty years, and the British Government had more or less guaranteed their independence. Of course circumstances alter cases, and, as they could not govern themselves and were about to plunge South Africa into a bloody war, our intervention was necessary, but this the more ignorant of them could scarcely be expected to understand, at any rate at first.
Many threats were uttered against us. Says Sir Theophilus Shepstone in one of his despatches of that day to Lord Carnarvon: “Every effort had been made during the previous fortnight by, it is said, educated Hollanders who had but lately arrived in the country, to rouse the fanaticism of the Boers and to induce them to offer ‘bloody’ resistance to what it was known I intended to do. The Boers were appealed to in the most inflammatory language by printed manifestos and memorials . . . it was urged that I had but a small escort which could easily be overpowered.”
Indeed there is no doubt that at times during these months we went in considerable risk. I will not set down all the stories that came to our ears, of how we were to be waylaid and shot on this occasion or on that, but an incident that I remember shows me that Shepstone at any rate thought there was something in them. One night I and another member of the staff — I think it was Morcom — were at work late, copying despatches in a room of the building which afterwards became Government House. This room had large windows opening on to a verandah, and over these we had not drawn the curtains. Sir Theophilus came in and scolded us, saying that we ought to remember that we made a very easy target against that lighted background. Then he drew the curtains with his own hand.
The Volksraad met and discussed all kinds of matters, but nothing came of their labours, except the appointment of a Commission to examine into the state of the country and confer with H.M.‘s Special Commissioner. I attended some of their debates and remember the scene well. They were held in a long, low room down the centre of which stood a deal table. Round this table sat some thirty members, most of them Boers. At the head of the room sat the Chairman at a little raised desk, by the side of which stood a chair for the use of the President of the State when he visited the Volksraad. Among the members was Paul Kruger, then a middle-aged man with a stern, thick face and a squat figure. At one of these sittings I obtained his autograph, a curious piece of calligraphy which I am sorry to say I have lost. We saw a good deal of “Oom Paul” in those days, for on several occasions he visited the Special Commissioner. Generally I showed him in and out, and I recollect that the man impressed me more than did any of the other Boers.
In after days I knew that Volksraad Zaal well enough, for when I became Master and Registrar of the High Court I used to sit in it just beneath the judge.
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