o essential for diagnosing those grave questions with some
degree of certainty, and to locate the guilt more precisely.

Since my youth I have passed nearly forty years in uninterrupted and
intimate intercourse with all classes of Boers, resulting in a sincere
attachment to that people, with no small appreciation of its many good
traits and character. Besides making myself familiar with the earlier
portion of that nation's history, I have had leisure and opportunities
to closely follow up its later interesting phases up to the present
moment. These presented a more perplexing aspect during the last decade,
adding a zest to my endeavours for unravelling them, and happening to
be a good deal in the know I felt that I might not remain quiet.

Being anything but anti-Boer, nor an Englishman, but a foreigner, born
of continental parents and brought up in Europe, these facts should
exempt me from a supposition of bias in exonerating England. It is with
real grief that I must record my convictions against the Boer nation as
solely and entirely guilty, but with this qualification, that its
responsibility is much attenuated by the fact, as I will endeavour to
show, that the bulk of that people has been unconsciously decoyed as
tools of a gigantic intrigue, a conspiracy which was originated some
thirty years ago by an infamous Hollander coterie, and operated since by
its product and engine, the now well-known "Afrikaner Bond Association,"
with its significant motto of "Afrika voor Afrikaners"[1]--its object
being no less than the eviction of all that is English from South
Africa, and to substitute a federation of all South African States into
one free and independent Republic, the affiliation to be with Holland
instead, and Dutch the common and official language, other nations, in
return for afforded aid, to participate in the trade and other
advantages wrested from England.

I only regret that my ability falls so much short for the task of
demonstrating all this in an approved style--for doing justice to the
subject. Its investigation embraces a wider range of details to serve as
evidence than may, upon first thought, be held as relevant; but I
believe that a willing study will show their connection as serviceable
for arriving at an independent and unhesitating verdict.

A very strong and convincing case is indeed needed for remodelling
opinions where there is preconceived Boer partisanship, and where party
spirit or else for