, Digest of Int. Law, Vol. VII, p. 19.]

The request of the Transvaal was at once despatched to London, and the
earnest hope was expressed by the President that a way might be found to
bring about peace, with the intimation that he "would be glad to aid in
any friendly manner to promote so happy a result." The Transvaal was
promptly informed of this action and the United States representative in
London communicated the President's instructions to Lord Salisbury. In
answer he was requested to "thank the President for the friendly
interest shown by him," but it was unmistakably declared that "Her
Majesty's Government could not accept the intervention of any
power."[19] This reply was communicated to Pretoria, and no further
steps were taken, since any insistence upon the part of the United
States would have been an unfriendly act.

[Footnote 19: Moore, Digest of Int. Law, Vol. VII, p. 20.]

In justification of the action of the President, in view of the popular
feeling that more urgent pressure might have been used to cause the
cessation of hostilities, Secretary Hay clearly showed that the United
States Government was the only one of all those approached by the
republics which had even tendered its good offices in the interest of
peace. He called attention to the fact that despite the popular clamor
to the contrary the action of the Government was fully in accord with
the provisions of the Hague Conference and went as far as that
Convention warranted. A portion of Article III of that instrument
declares: "Powers, strangers to the dispute, may have the right to offer
good offices or mediation, even during the course of hostilities," but
Article V asserts, "The functions of the mediator are at an end when
once it is declared either by one of the parties to the dispute or by
the mediator, himself, that the means of conciliation proposed by him
are not accepted."[20] Obviously any further action on the part of the
United States was not required under the circumstances, and Secretary
Hay seems fully justified in his statement that "the steps taken by the
President in his earnest desire to see an end to the strife which caused
so much suffering may already be said to have gone to the extreme limit
permitted to him." Moreover, had the President preferred not to present
to Great Britain the Republic's request for good offices, his action
could have been justified by the conditions under which the
representatives of the United