pt the
most covetous. An empty treasury and two expensive native wars were the
reversion which we took over. It was honestly considered that the
country was in too distracted a state to govern itself, and had, by its
weakness, become a scandal and a danger to its neighbours and to itself.
There was nothing sordid in the British action, though it may have been
premature and injudicious. There is some reason to think that if it had
been delayed it would eventually have been done on the petition of the
majority of the inhabitants.

In December 1880 the Boers rose. Every farmhouse sent out its riflemen,
and the trysting-place was the outside of the nearest British fort. All
through the country small detachments were surrounded and besieged by
the farmers. Standerton, Pretoria, Potchefstroom, Lydenburg,
Wakkerstroom, Rustenburg, and Marabastad were all invested and all held
out until the end of the war. In the open country the troops were less
fortunate. At Bronkhorst Spruit a small British force was taken by
surprise and shot down without harm to their antagonists. The surgeon
who treated them has left it on record that the average number of wounds
was five per man. At Laing's Nek an inferior force of British
endeavoured to rush a hill which was held by Boer riflemen. Half of the
men were killed and wounded. Ingogo may be called a drawn battle, though
the British loss was more heavy than that of the enemy. Finally came the
defeat of Majuba Hill, where 400 infantry upon a mountain were defeated
and driven off by a swarm of sharpshooters who advanced under the cover
of boulders. Of all these actions there was not one which was more than
a skirmish, and had they been followed by a final British victory they
would now be hardly remembered. It is the fact that they were skirmishes
which succeeded in their object which has given them an importance which
is exaggerated.

The defeat at Majuba Hill was followed by the complete surrender of the
Gladstonian Government, an act which was either the most pusillanimous
or the most magnanimous in recent history. It is hard for the big man to
draw away from the small before blows are struck, but when the big man
has been knocked down three times it is harder still. An overwhelming
British force was in the field, and the General declared that he held
the enemy in the hollow of his hand. British military calculations have
been falsified before now by these farmers, and it may be that the tas