army be after another ten years of war?
It is clear enough to me that if we go on any longer, we shall be
compelled to surrender. Would it not be better to come to some agreement
with the enemy, while we have the opportunity? We have all received the
gift of reason; let us use it on the present occasion.

"As far as I and my own burghers are concerned, to continue the struggle
is still possible. But we must not only think of ourselves. We must
almost think of others. There are, for instance, the widows and orphans.
If we accept the terms now offered to us, they will remain under our
care. But if we go on with the war until we are forced to surrender, who
will then take care of them? Or if we were all killed, what could we do
for them? We should not even be able to send a deputation to Europe, to
ask for money to help us to rebuild our farms, and to feed our burghers.

"There are three questions now before us--three alternatives between
which we have to choose--the continuing of the war, unconditional
surrender, and the acceptance of the British proposal. With regard to
the first, I fail to see what satisfactory result can come to us from
persisting in this unequal contest, which must result in the end in our
extermination. As to the choice between the other two, in many ways
unconditional surrender would be the better. But, for the sake of the
nation, we may not choose it. Although to reject it may involve us in
many hardships, yet we must think of nothing else but the interests of
the nation. Our only course, then, is to accept the proposal of the
English Government. Its terms may not be very advantageous to us, but
nevertheless they rescue us from an almost impossible position."

After a short adjournment the delegates again assembled at about 2 p.m.

General C.H. Muller (Boksburg) said that his burghers had sent him to
defend their menaced independence. One part of them had authorized him
to act as his judgment should dictate; another part had ordered him to
hold out for independence and to try to get into communication with the
European deputation. He had long ago told his burghers that they must
trust in God if they wished to continue the war, for they could not do
so by relying only on their guns and rifles. He did not like to think of
what they would say if he were to go back to them and tell them that he
had not been in communication with the deputation, and that the
proposal of the English Government had bee