the other
hand, the decision to give the coalfields at Dundee the protection
contemplated by Sir W. Butler was adopted.

[Sidenote: Sept. 25th, /99. Glencoe held.]

By the 24th September the Governor told General Symons that the
gravity of the political situation was such that the dispositions of
the troops previously agreed on for the defence of the colony must at
once be carried out. The necessary permission to act having been
obtained by telegram from the General Officer Commanding South Africa,
the 1st Leicester and 2nd Royal Dublin Fusiliers, with a squadron of
the 18th Hussars were entrained at Ladysmith for Glencoe on the
morning of the 25th September, the remainder of the 18th Hussars, with
a mounted infantry company and two field batteries reaching Glencoe by
march route on the 26th. The gaps these changes made in the Ladysmith
garrison were filled up, the 5th Lancers, 1st King's Royal Rifles, and
1st Manchester being ordered to move to that place from Maritzburg.

[Sidenote: Sir George White, Oct. 7th, wishes to withdraw from
Glencoe.]

Sir George White had been despatched early in September from England
to command the troops in Natal. When, on October 7th, he arrived and
assumed command, he found that the forces at his disposal were divided
into two bodies, the one at Glencoe and the other at Ladysmith. On
leaving England he had been given no instructions on the subject, nor
had the previous correspondence with the local military authorities as
to the defence of Natal been seen by him, but he held that from a
military point of view the only sound policy was to concentrate the
whole of the British troops in such a position that he would be able
to strike with his full strength at the enemy the moment an
opportunity offered. He determined, therefore, to withdraw the Glencoe
detachment and assemble the whole at Ladysmith, the importance of
which was increased by the preliminary dispositions of the Boer
commandos, to be described later. The Governor, on being informed of
this intention, remonstrated against the withdrawal from Glencoe in
terms which are thus recorded in his subsequent report of the
interview to the Secretary of State for the Colonies:--

[Sidenote: Protest by Governor.]

"Now that we were there, withdrawal would, in my opinion, involve
grave political results, loyalists would be disgusted and
discouraged; the results as regards the Dutch would be grave,
many, if not m