an time negotiations had been proceeding for obtaining the
release of the leaders. The friends and representatives of the four
prisoners had become subject to all manner of attentions from numbers
of people in Pretoria; near relations of the President himself,
high-placed Government officials, their relatives, hangers-on,
prominent Boers, and persons of all sorts and descriptions, all
offered their services and indicated means by which the thing could
be arranged. All wanted money--personal bribes. The prisoners
themselves were similarly approached, and they who a month previously
had been condemned to death witnessed with disgust a keen competition
among their enemies for the privilege of effecting--at a price--their
release. Day after day they were subjected to the disgusting
importunities of these men--men who a little while before had been
vaunting their patriotism and loudly expressing a desire to prove it
by hanging these same Reformers.

The gaoler Du Plessis, representing himself as having been sent by
the President, suggested to the four men that they should 'make a
petition.' They declined to do so. Du Plessis was then reinforced by
the Chief Commissioner of Police, and the two officials again urged
this course but stated that they did not wish it to be known that
they had been sent by the Executive and therefore could not
consent to their names being used. Upon these terms the prisoners
again declined. They said that if they were to hold any communication
with the Government they required to have it on record that they did
so at the suggestion of the two responsible gaol officials who
represented themselves as expressing the wish of the Executive
Council. After further delay and consultations with the President and
others the two officials above named consented to allow their names
to be used in the manner indicated. Not content with this the
prisoners demanded that they should be allowed to send an independent
messenger to the President to ascertain whether he really required a
written appeal for revision of sentence. Having received confirmation
in this manner the four men addressed a letter to the Executive
Council. In this letter they stated that they had been sentenced to
death; that the death-sentence had been commuted; and that they
understood--but had received no authoritative information on the
subject--that they were to suffer instead a term of fifteen years'
imprisonment. They suggested the imposi