eeling in the Colony was
better than I have ever known it."

[Sidenote: Recrudescence of the war.]

If it had been possible to screen those portions of the conquered
territories which were fast settling down to peaceful pursuits from
the incursions of the enemy still in the field, the worst results of
the guerilla war might have been avoided. But the "vast extent of the
country, and the necessity of concentrating our forces for the long
advance, first to Pretoria and then to Komati Poort," made this
impossible. The Boer leaders raided the country already occupied, but
now left exposed; and, encouraged by the small successes thus easily
obtained, the commandos reappeared first in the south-east of the
Orange River Colony, then in the south-west of the Transvaal, and
finally in every portion of the conquered territory.

Those among the burgher population who desired to submit to British
rule now found themselves in a position of great difficulty.

"Instead of being made prisoners of war, they had been allowed to
remain on their farms on taking the oath of neutrality, and many
of them were really anxious to keep it. But they had not the
strength of mind, nor, from want of education, a sufficient
appreciation of the sacredness of the obligation which they had
undertaken, to resist the pressure of their old companions in
arms when these reappeared among them appealing to their
patriotism and to their fears. In a few weeks or months the very
men whom we had spared and treated with exceptional leniency were
up in arms again, justifying their breach of faith in many cases
by the extraordinary argument that we had not preserved them from
the temptation to commit it.

"The general rising at the back of our advanced forces naturally
led to the return of a number of our troops, and to a straggling
conflict not yet concluded, in which the conduct of our own
troops, naturally enough, was not characterised by the same
leniency to the enemy which marked our original conquest. We did
not, indeed, treat the men who had broken parole with the same
severity with which I believe any other nation would have
treated them. Entitled as we were by the universally recognised
rules of war to shoot the men who, having once been prisoners in
our hands and having been released on a distinct pledge to
abstain from further part