th homeless and impoverished fugitives; it inflicted unnecessary
suffering and pecuniary loss upon inoffensive and innocent
non-combatants, both European and native; and it was accompanied in
some instances by displays of wanton cruelty and deliberate spite
utterly unworthy of a people of European descent.

[Sidenote: Anxiety of High Commissioner.]

Thus it was only when Lord Milner's foresight had been unmistakably
confirmed by the stern logic of facts that the British Government
ordered these 10,000 troops to South Africa, 6,000 of whom--the Indian
contribution--arrived just in time to save Natal from being overrun by
the Boers. The three weeks preceding the Cabinet Council of September
8th, at which this decision was arrived at, had been a period of
intense anxiety for the High Commissioner. With the spectacle of the
increasing activity of England's enemies, and the increasing dismay of
England's friends, before his eyes, his protests against the
inactivity of the Home Government had become more urgent. In the
middle of August he declared that he could no longer be responsible
for the administration of South Africa unless he were provided
immediately with another military adviser. General Forestier-Walker
was then appointed, and after the departure of General Butler the
Imperial Government intervened at length to check the further passage
of munitions of war through the Colony to the Free State.[142] The
_Norman_, the mail-boat of August 23rd in which Sir William Butler
sailed for England, took home the masterly despatch[143] in which Lord
Milner explained the position taken up by him at the Bloemfontein
Conference, and showed how completely the proposals of the Transvaal
Government differed from the spirit of the settlement which he had
then invited President Krueger to accept. In doing so he reviewed the
whole course of the subsequent negotiations, pointed out the insidious
character of the last Transvaal proposal (August 19th and 21st), and
emphatically protested against the suggestion that the Imperial
Government should barter its rights as paramount Power for "another
hastily framed franchise scheme," on account of its "superficial
conformity" with what, after all, was only a single item in the long
list of questions that must be adjusted before the peaceful progress
of South Africa would be assured.[144] On August 28th Mr. Schreiner,
when called to account in the Cape Parliament for having allowed, "in
the us