eed, not unnatural--that people
unsoftened by education and the conditions of civilization, moved by
fierce race prejudice, and intoxicated by unbroken and unexpected
success, should in many cases make the vanquished feel the
conqueror's heel. The position of men of British name or sympathies
in the country districts was very serious, and the injustice done to
those who had settled since the annexation, believing that they were
to live under the laws and protection of their own Government was
grave indeed.

The Government of the country was vested in a Triumvirate with Mr.
Stephanus Johannes Paulus Kruger as Vice-President during the period
immediately following the war; but in 1882 the old form was restored
and Mr. Kruger was elected President, an office which he is now
holding for the third successive term.{06}

Prior to the war the population of the country was reckoned by both
Dutch and English authorities to be about 40,000 souls, the great
majority of whom were Dutch. The memorial addressed to Lord
Carnarvon, dated January 7, 1878, praying for repeal of the
annexation, was 'signed by 6,591 qualified electors out of a possible
8,000,' as is explained in the letter of the Transvaal delegates to
Sir M. Hicks-Beach dated July 10, 1878. The fact, already mentioned,
that 3,000 electors had petitioned for the annexation only means that
some of them changed their minds under pressure or conviction, and
helped to swell the number of those who later on petitioned for
repeal. The signatories to the above memorial would include
practically all the Dutch electors in the country, and the remaining
1,400 or so would probably be the non-Boer party who preferred
British rule, and could not be coerced into signing memorials against
it. These figures are useful as a check upon those now put forward by
the Transvaal Government to combat the assertion that the Uitlanders
outnumber the Boers. Recognizing the fact that the Boers are a
singularly domestic and prolific people, one may allow that
they numbered 35,000 out of the total population, an estimate that
will be seen to be extremely liberal. At the time that the above
figures were quoted by the Transvaal delegates every Boer youth over
the age of twenty-one was a qualified voter, so that it would seem
that the qualified Boer voter had an _average_ of one wife and 4.3
children, a fair enough allowance in all conscience. These figures
should be borne in mind, for the present Boer