one and all of high treason, and they should know what would
have been considered 'sufficient.' The latter added that the prime
movers were of course guilty; but they at any rate had tried to stop
Jameson, whilst those who joined the Reform Committee in the later
stages were morally worse, since they had only joined when and
because they knew that he had invaded the country. Mr. Gregorowski,
at a later stage, defended his sentence on the leaders, but feared he
had been 'far too lenient with the others.' It would be unfair
therefore to suggest that the advice on which the prisoners had
decided to act was other than sound wise and proper in the
circumstances. That it should afterwards appear that the other
parties to the arrangement had acted with deliberate duplicity and
bad faith cannot be laid as a charge against the gentlemen who gave
this advice, and whose only fault, if fault it be, was that their
instincts, their principles, and their training precluded the
suspicion of treachery.

The trial commenced on April 24, when the prisoners were arraigned,
after which an adjournment was made until the 27th, in order to allow
three of the prisoners who were then travelling up to take their
trial to arrive. On the latter date, all being present, and pleas of
guilty having been recorded, the State Attorney put in the cipher
telegrams, the minutes of the 'privileged' meeting between the
Government Commission and the deputation of the Reform Committee,
none of which had been produced in evidence, and the record of
evidence taken at the preliminary examination. Mr. Wessels then read
and put in the following statement of the four leaders:

For a number of years endeavours have been made to obtain by
constitutional means the redress of the grievances under which the
Uitlander population labours. The new-comer asked for no more than is
conceded to emigrants by all the other Governments in South
Africa, under which every man may, on reasonable conditions, become a
citizen of the State; whilst here alone a policy is pursued by which
the first settlers retain the exclusive right of government.

Petitions supported by the signatures of some 40,000 men were
ignored; and when it was found that we could not get a fair and
reasonable hearing, that provisions already deemed obnoxious and
unfair were being made more stringent, and that we were being
debarred for ever from obtaining the rights which in other countries
are freely granted,