with an accident; he was
infirm--his nerves were shaken. The President refused to be
interviewed on the Sabbath, and the result of his journey was a
single meeting with Mr. Kruger, but the British Resident, Sir
Jacobus de Wet, and Sir Sidney Shippard, were deputed to address and
pacify the perturbed multitude in Johannesburg. The Uitlanders,
they promised, should get their just rights--that her Majesty's
Government would ensure--but they must first give up their arms: the
fate of Jameson depended on it! The Reform leaders at this time knew
nothing of the terms of the surrender, and the guarantee given by
Commandant Cronje, or, perhaps, they knew too well what Cronje's
guarantees were likely to be worth; and much against their better
judgment, believing that their rights would be secured and the
safety of Jameson effected, they eventually consented to
disarmament.

As we know, the conspirators had been short of arms--they had about
2500 guns in all. When these were given up the Boers were
dissatisfied. They had reason to believe that some 20,000 guns were
to be supplied as part of the scheme, and suspected that the
Reformers were concealing the existence of many weapons. The word of
honour of the leaders produced no effect, and energetic search
through floors and in the mines was carried on for some months
afterwards.

Of course, this disarmament immediately threw the Reformers into the
clutches of the Pretoria Government. The authorities made haste to
issue warrants for the arrest of sixty-four of the most prominent
men of the movement; this in spite of the assurance made to the
British agent that "not a hair of their heads should be touched"!
Mrs. Phillips has reason to speak very bitterly of the mismanagement
of the High Commissioner on this occasion. Having done his gruesome
work, she says, "he returned to Cape Town, leaving Johannesburg
absolutely at the mercy of the Boers. He actually effected the
disarmament of this large town without making one single condition
for its safety, and from that day the most signal acts of tyranny
and injustice were committed over and over again by the Boer
Oligarchy, and there was no one to say them nay. This was a critical
event for English supremacy in South Africa, this final act of
supreme weakness and folly! Many of her most loyal subjects from
that moment have wavered on the brink, and some have gone over to
the side of the Africander Bond. It is such actions as these which