andant-General of the Boer forces, to all military
officers, landdrosts, etc., giving specific instructions for
the punishment of surrendered burghers who refused to join
the commandos when called upon, and for the evasion of the
neutrality oath.]

And, while the peaceably inclined burghers were prevented from
surrendering by the fear of these penalties, the courage of the
commandos was maintained by the spread of false information. Among
these same papers found at Roos Senekal is a telegram despatched on
November 2nd, 1900, to General Viljoen, containing a number of
encouraging statements bearing upon the political and military
situation, of which the three following may be taken as
characteristic:

"October, 1900. A Congress of Delegates of the Powers was held at
Parijs [Paris], whereby England asked for an extension of six
months to carry on the war. This was refused by the powers on the
proposal of Holland and Austria.

"France is ready to land troops in England on the 1st November.

"Cape Colonial troops to the number of 2,500 have been sent back
by General Roberts, having quarrelled with the regulars. Their
arms were taken away and burnt. This last is official news
received by General Fourie."[243]

[Footnote 243: Cd. 663.]

[Sidenote: "Not civilised warfare".]

It was in order to counteract the effects of this system of terrorism
and deceit, that the endeavour was made to inform the mass of the
Boers still in arms of the actual state of affairs, both in respect of
the hopelessness of foreign intervention and the real intentions of
the British Government, through the agency of the Burgher Peace
Committee. The treatment accorded to these peace emissaries is
justifiable, possibly, by a strict interpretation of the laws of war;
but it fixes inevitably the responsibility for the needless sufferings
of the Boer people in the guerilla war, upon Ex-President Steyn,
Schalk Burger, Louis Botha, Christian de Wet, and the other Boer
leaders. On January 10th, 1901, of three agents of the Peace Committee
taken prisoners to De Wet's laager near Lindley, one--a British
subject--was flogged and then shot, and two, who were burghers, were
flogged.[244] And on February 12th Meyer de Kock, the Secretary of the
Committee, was shot.[245]

[Footnote 244: Cd. 547.]

[Footnote 245: Cd. 663. It was at this time that the