6 guns, and a company of
Royal Engineers were all the troops available for the defence
of the Cape frontiers at this time (_i.e._ June).]

[Footnote 85: Most of these came by mail boats on July 18th
and 25th. Col. Baden-Powell (who was entrusted with the
important duty of organising a force for the defence of
Southern Rhodesia, and subsequently of raising the mounted
infantry corps which held Mafeking) arrived on the latter
date.]

These were the utterly inadequate reinforcements sent in response to
Lord Milner's urgent appeal, and in disregard of General Butler's
protest that they were wholly undesirable--an opinion which was
endorsed in England by Sir H. Campbell-Bannerman, when, on June 17th,
1899, he declared that there was nothing in the South African
situation to justify even preparations for war.

During the interval between the Bloemfontein Conference and General
Butler's recall in the latter part of August Lord Milner's position
was one of unparalleled difficulty. The Cape and Natal garrisons were
maintained in a state of perilous weakness by the policy of the Home
Government. The measures to be undertaken locally for the defence of
the colonies, which the Cabinet had sanctioned, were wholly
insufficient in Lord Milner's opinion. And the general execution of
these wholly insufficient local measures was left in the hands of a
General Officer who had told the Secretary of State that he absolutely
disapproved of them on political grounds, since the mere announcement
of their being made would "add largely to the ferment," which he "was
[then] endeavouring to reduce by every means." The Cape Ministry,
with whom rested the disposal of the colonial forces, was a ministry
placed in office by the Bond for the especial purpose of opposing
British intervention in the Transvaal. In these circumstances it
needed all Lord Milner's mastery of South African conditions, and all
his tact and address, to make the relations between himself and his
Afrikander Cabinet tolerable; and, above all, in view of the refusal
of the Imperial Government to sanction the military preparations
advised by the Commander-in-Chief, it required ceaseless vigilance on
his part to prevent the acceptance of an illusory settlement which
would have sounded the death-knell of British supremacy in South
Africa.

[Sidenote: President Krueger's proposals.]

On the last day of the C