FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157  
158   159   160   161   162   163   164   165   166   167   168   169   170   171   172   173   174   175   176   177   178   179   180   181   182   >>   >|  
ery midst of the battle of the Baltic, Nelson sent a letter to the Danish Prince Regent, with whom he was then fighting, and addressed it thus: "To the Danes, the Brothers of Englishmen." Within little more than half a century from that date the daughter of the Danish throne became heir to the Queenship of England's throne; and our Laureate rightly voiced the whole nation's feeling when to that fair bride he said: "We are each all Dane in our welcome of thee." When Nelson penned that strange address amid the flash and fire of actual battle, it was with the true insight of a seer. The furious foes of his day are the fast friends of ours, and by the end of another half-century a similar transformation may be wrought in the present relationship between Boer and Briton, who are quite as near akin as Dane and Englishman. But to lightly talk of such foes becoming friends "in a few days" is to misread the meaning and measure of a controversy that is more than a century old. Between victors and vanquished, both of so dogged a type, it requires more than a mere treaty of peace to beget goodwill. [Sidenote: _More Boer Slimness._] Some of these now released prisoners were among the very first to be captured, and so had spent many weary weeks in the Waterval Prison near Pretoria, and were among those who had been decoyed away to these remote and seemingly unassailable mountain fastnesses. They had thus been in bonds altogether ten interminable months. Multiplied hardships had during that period necessarily been theirs, and others for which there was no real need or excuse; but they frankly confessed that as a whole their treatment by the Boers, though leaving much to be desired, had seldom been hard or vindictive. There were others of these prisoners, however, who were sick or wounded, and therefore were quite unable to climb from the open door of their prison to our lofty camp; so to fetch these I saw seven ambulance waggons made ready to set out with the usual complement of medical orderlies and doctors. These I seriously thought of accompanying on their errand of mercy, but was mercifully hindered. Those red cross waggons we saw no more for ever. The Boers were said to be short of waggons, and asserted that in some way some of our men had done them recent wrong which they wished to avenge. But whatever the supposed provocation or pretext, it was in violation of all the recognised usages of war that those wag
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157  
158   159   160   161   162   163   164   165   166   167   168   169   170   171   172   173   174   175   176   177   178   179   180   181   182   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

waggons

 

century

 

battle

 

Nelson

 

prisoners

 

friends

 

throne

 

Danish

 
leaving
 

seldom


vindictive

 

treatment

 
desired
 
period
 

altogether

 

fastnesses

 

mountain

 

remote

 

seemingly

 

unassailable


interminable
 

months

 

excuse

 
frankly
 

Multiplied

 

hardships

 

necessarily

 

confessed

 

asserted

 

mercifully


hindered

 

recent

 

recognised

 
violation
 

usages

 
pretext
 

provocation

 
wished
 
avenge
 

supposed


errand
 

prison

 
decoyed
 

wounded

 

unable

 

ambulance

 

doctors

 

thought

 
accompanying
 

orderlies