t, Holland, where he took the degree of doctor of theology. On his
return to South Africa he was ordained minister of the Dutch Reformed
Church, and stationed at Hanover in Cape Colony, where he exercised his
ministrations for eight years. In 1862 his preaching attracted attention,
and two years later an ecclesiastical tribunal suspended him for heretical
opinions. He appealed, however, to the colonial government, which had
appointed him, and obtained judgment in his favour, which was confirmed by
the privy council of England on appeal in 1865. On the resignation of M.W.
Pretorius and the refusal of President Brand of the Orange Free State to
accept the office, Burgers was elected president of the Transvaal, taking
the oath on the 1st of July 1872. In 1873 he endeavoured to persuade
Montsioa to agree to an alteration in the boundary of the Barolong
territory as fixed by the Keate award, but failed (see BECHUANALAND). In
1875 Burgers, leaving the Transvaal in charge of Acting-President Joubert,
went to Europe mainly to promote a scheme for linking the Transvaal to the
coast by a railway from Delagoa Bay, which was that year definitely
assigned to Portugal by the MacMahon award. With the Portuguese Burgers
concluded a treaty, December 1875, providing for the construction of the
railway. After meeting with refusals of financial help in London, Burgers
managed to raise L90,000 in Holland, and bought a quantity of railway
plant, which on its arrival at Delagoa Bay was mortgaged to pay freight,
and this, so far as Burgers was concerned, was the end of the matter. In
June 1876 he induced the raad to declare war against Sikukuni (Secocoeni),
a powerful native chief in the eastern Transvaal. The campaign was
unsuccessful, and with its failure the republic fell into a condition of
lawlessness and insolvency, while a Zulu host threatened invasion. Burgers
in an address to the raad (3rd of March 1877) declared "I would rather be a
policeman under a strong government than the president of such a state. It
is you---you members of the raad and the Boers--who have lost the country,
who have sold your independence for a drink." Sir Theophilus Shepstone, who
had been sent to investigate the condition of affairs in the Transvaal,
issued on the 12th of April a proclamation annexing the Transvaal to Great
Britain. Burgers fully acquiesced in the necessity for annexation. He
accepted a pension from the British government, and settled down to far