eplied immediately:

"This is not an answer to your note of this date, but is to ask
you to allow me to show your note to a friend of yours and of
mine. As it is marked 'private' I cannot do this until I hear
from you. Would you be so good as to send word by the driver of
the cab which waits?..."

In a second letter, written on the same day (April 19th), and
presumably after he had consulted the mutual friend in question, Mr.
Hargrove wrote:

"Knowing as you do that I never told you of my proposed trip to
Pretoria, that I never talked the matter over with you in any
shape or form, you may be sure that when I got there I did not
speak or make promises in your behalf. But I did mention your
name in this way: I told President Krueger of a conversation I had
had with Mr. Sauer, in which I had asked him what his attitude
would be in the event of the Republics offering to withdraw their
forces from colonial territory on the condition that their
independence would be recognised. Mr. Sauer's reply was that, in
those circumstances he would, in his personal capacity, most
certainly urge the acceptance of that offer, and that, although
he could speak for himself only, he thought it probable you would
do the same."

Mr. Hargrove adds that the "misconception" embodied in President
Krueger's telegram is due to the circumstance that it was probably
"dictated in a hurry, amidst a rush of other business," and contained
a "hasty and more or less careless account" of a "long talk"
translated to the President by Mr. Reitz from English into Dutch.

Mr. Hargrove at the same time forwarded a copy of this letter to Mr.
Sauer. With this latter minister of the Crown he enjoyed a more
intimate acquaintance, since, as Lord Milner points out,[219] he had
been Mr. Sauer's travelling companion during this latter's
"well-meant, but unsuccessful, journey to Wodehouse, which was
immediately followed by the rebellion of that district."

[Footnote 219: In his covering despatch, Cd. 261, p. 126. For
the circumstances of Mr. Sauer's visit to Dordrecht on the
occasion mentioned see note, p. 287.]

[Sidenote: The Graaf Reinet congress.]

This, then, was the character of the man who travelled throughout the
Colony, addressing meetings of the Dutch population, in order that
"the hands of the friends of the Afrikander party in England mi