ars' War_.]

After the vote on the British terms had been taken, a resolution
constituting a committee[342] to collect funds for the destitute Boers
was passed; and the Peace Commissioners, having telegraphed the
decision of the delegates to Lord Kitchener, hastened back by train to
sign the Surrender Agreement at Pretoria.

[Footnote 342: Three of the members of this committee,
Generals Botha, De Wet, and De la Rey, were instructed to
proceed to Europe for the purposes of this appeal.]

Late in the afternoon of May 31st, Lord Milner, who had returned to
Johannesburg on the 28th, and had been busily engaged on
administrative matters while the discussion at Vereeniging was going
on, was informed that Lord Kitchener wished to speak to him on the
telephone. Then, along the wire, in the familiar voice of the
Commander-in-Chief, came the welcome words: "It is peace." There was
just time to pack up and catch the half-past six train, which brought
the High Commissioner to Pretoria at a quarter past eight. Lord Milner
and his staff, when at Pretoria, habitually stayed at the former
British Agency, but this night he dined with Lord Kitchener; and here,
at Lord Kitchener's house, the Boer commissioners appeared at about 10
o'clock, and just before eleven (May 31st) the Surrender Agreement
was signed.[343]

[Footnote 343: The actual surrender of the arms in the
possession of the burgher and rebel commandos was carried out
with admirable promptitude. Three weeks after the agreement
had been signed Lord Kitchener was able, in a final despatch
from Capetown on June 23rd, to record his "high appreciation
of the unflagging energy and unfailing tact" with which
Generals Louis Botha, De la Rey, and Christian de Wet had
facilitated the work of the British commissioners appointed
to receive the surrender of the burghers in the Transvaal and
Orange River Colony. Nor were the Boer and rebel commandos in
the Cape Colony less expeditious in surrendering to General
French. In all 21,226 burghers and colonial rebels, of whom
11,166 were in the Transvaal, 6,455 in the Orange River
Colony, and 3,635 in the Cape, laid down their arms. Lord
Kitchener's last words (despatches of June 21st and 23rd),
addressed respectively to the Colonial Governments and the
Secretary o