afraid of now is that
Chamberlain, with his admitted fitfulness of temper,
will cheat us out of the war, and consequently the
opportunity of annexing the Cape Colony and
Natal, and forming the Republican United States
of South Africa; for, in spite of [S. J. du Toit],
we have forty-six thousand fighting men who have
pledged themselves to die shoulder to shoulder in
defence of our liberty, and to secure the independence
of South Africa.

"Please forward ----'s luggage.
"J. N. BLIGNAUT."[149]

[Footnote 149: Cd. 420. The Blue-book points out that in the
original "a well-known nick-name" is used for Mr. S. J. du
Toit.]

[Sidenote: Afrikander aspirations.]

This is not an isolated or exceptional expression of opinion. It is a
typical statement of what was in the mind of ninety-nine out of every
hundred republican nationalists at this time. The aspirations it
contains were proclaimed a fortnight later to the world by President
Krueger himself in the boast that his Republic would "stagger
humanity." They appeared in the nonchalant remarks made a few days
later by Mr. Gregorowski, the Chief Justice of the Transvaal, in
bidding farewell to Canon Farmer,[150] who was preparing to leave his
cure at Pretoria in view of the certainty of war.

[Footnote 150: As reported by Reuter.]

"Is it really necessary for you to go? The war will be over in a
fortnight. We shall take Kimberley and Mafeking, and give the
English such a beating in Natal that they will sue for peace."

War, then, for the Boer meant "an opportunity of annexing the Cape
Colony and Natal, and forming the Republican United States of South
Africa." When Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, Mr. John Morley, Lord
Courtney, Mr. James Bryce, and other Liberal leaders saw no reason why
the British Government should make military preparations--did, in
fact, do all in their power to induce the English people to withhold
the support necessary to allow the British Government to make these
preparations--there were, twelve thousand British troops in South
Africa to oppose the "forty-six thousand fighting men who had pledged
themselves to die shoulder to shoulder" to secure the independence,
not of the Transvaal but of "South Africa".

And what of the Dutch in the Cape Colony? Our second document will
enlighten us on this point. It is an invitation, co