ters, to express my deep sense of gratitude for the manner in
which His Majesty's Government, and especially my immediate
chief, have shown me great forbearance, and given me support most
prompt at the moment when it was most needed, without which I
should have been helpless indeed. And I have also to thank many
friends, not a few of them here present, and some not present,
for messages of encouragement, for kindly words of suggestion and
advice received at critical moments, some of which have been of
invaluable assistance to me, and have made an indelible
impression on my heart. I am afraid, if I were to refer to all my
benefactors, it would be like the bidding prayer--and you would
all lose your trains.

[Sidenote: Hint from the bidding prayer.]

"But there is one hint I may take from the bidding prayer. Not
only in this place, but at all times and in all places, I am
specially bound to remember the devotion of the loyalists--the
Dutch loyalists, if you please, and not only the British--the
loyalists of South Africa. They responded to all my appeals to
act, and, harder still, to wait. They never lost their cheery
confidence in the darkest days of our misfortunes, they never
faltered in their fidelity to a man of whose errors and failings
they were necessarily more conscious than anybody else, but of
whose honesty of purpose they were long ago, and once for all,
convinced. If there is anything most gratifying to me on this
memorable occasion it is the encouragement which I know the
events of yesterday and of to-day will give to thousands of our
South African fellow-countrymen, like minded with us, in the
homes and in the camps of South Africa.

"Your Royal Highness,[291] Mr. Chamberlain, ladies, and
gentlemen--I am sure you will not desire me to enter into any
political questions to-day. More than that, I really have nothing
to add to what I have already said and written, I fear with
wearisome reiteration. It seems to me we are slowly progressing
towards the predestined end; latterly it has appeared as if the
pace was somewhat quickening, but I do not wish to make too much
of that or to speak with any too great confidence. However long
the road, it seems to me the only one to the object which we were
bound to pursue, and which seems now fa