known, inhabited by savages; but the Boers
decided to brave the perils of the wilderness and to negotiate with the
savages for the possession of a tract of country, and so form an
independent community rather than remain any longer under British rule.

[Sidenote: The Manifesto of Piet Retief.]

In the words of Piet Retief, when he left Grahamstown:--

We despair of saving the Colony from those evils which threaten
it by the turbulent and dishonest conduct of vagrants who are
allowed to infest the country in every part; nor do we see any
prospect of peace or happiness for our children in a country thus
distracted by internal commotions.

We complain of the severe losses which we have been forced to
sustain by the emancipation of our slaves, and the vexatious laws
which have been enacted respecting them.

We complain of the continual system of plunder which we have for
years endured from the Kaffirs and other coloured classes, and
particularly by the last invasion of the Colony, which has
desolated the frontier district and ruined most of the
inhabitants.

We complain of the unjustifiable odium which has been cast upon
us by interested and dishonest persons, under the name of
religion, whose testimony is believed in England to the exclusion
of all evidence in our favour; and we can foresee, as the result
of this prejudice, nothing but the total ruin of the country.

We quit this Colony under the full assurance that the English
Government has nothing more to require of us, and will allow us
to govern ourselves without its interference in future.

We are now leaving the fruitful land of our birth, in which we
have suffered enormous losses and continual vexation, and are
about to enter a strange and dangerous territory; but we go with
a firm reliance on an all-seeing, just, and merciful God, whom we
shall always fear and humbly endeavour to obey.

In the name of all who leave this Colony with me.

P. RETIEF.

[Sidenote: The English in pursuit.]

We journeyed then with our fathers beyond the Orange River into the
unknown north, as free men and subjects of no sovereign upon earth. Then
began what the English Member of Parliament, Sir William Molesworth,
termed a strange sort of pursuit. The trekking Boer followed by the
British Colonial Office was indeed the strangest pursuit