e, settled down
and treated us in every way badly. The English Government then came and
took the country; we have now had four years of rest and peaceful
and just rule. We have been called here to-day, and are told that the
country, our country, has been given to the Boers by the Queen. This is
a thing which surprises us. Did the country, then, belong to the Boers?
Did it not belong to our fathers and forefathers before us, long before
the Boers came here? We have heard that the Boers' country is at the
Cape. If the Queen wishes to give them their land, why does she not give
them back the Cape?"

I have quoted this speech at length, because, although made by a
despised native, it sets forth their case more powerfully and in happier
language than I can do.

Umyethile said: "We have no heart for talking. I have returned to the
country from Sechelis, where I had to fly from Boer oppression. Our
hearts are black and heavy with grief to-day at the news told us, we are
in agony, our intestines are twisting and writhing inside of us, just as
you see a snake do when it is struck on the head. . . . We do not know
what has become of us, but we feel dead; it may be that the Lord may
change the nature of the Boers, and that we will not be treated like
dogs and beasts of burden as formerly, but we have no hope of such a
change, and we leave you with heavy hearts and great apprehension as
to the future." In his Report, Mr. Shepstone (the Secretary for Native
Affairs) says: "One chief, Jan Sibilo, who has been, he informed me,
personally threatened with death by the Boers after the English leave,
could not restrain his feelings, but cried like a child."

I have nothing to add to these extracts, which are taken from many such
statements. They are the very words of the persons most concerned, and
will speak for themselves.

The Convention was signed on the 3d August 1881, and was to be formally
ratified by a Volksraad or Parliament of the Burghers within three
months of that date, in default of which it was to fall to the ground
and become null and void.

Anybody who has followed the course of affairs with reference to the
retrocession of the Transvaal, or who has even taken the trouble to read
through this brief history, will probably come to the conclusion that,
under all the circumstances, the Boers had got more than they could
reasonably expect. Not so, however, the Boers themselves. On the 28th
September the newly-elected Vol