They cannot have intended this, and indeed they expressly disclaimed
designs on the independence of the Transvaal. Nevertheless the Free
State, when it saw negotiations stopped after September 22nd, and an
overwhelming British force ordered to South Africa while the proposals
foreshadowed in the despatch of September 22nd remained undisclosed,
became convinced that Britain meant to crush the Transvaal. Being bound
by treaty to support the Transvaal if the latter was unjustly attacked,
and holding the conduct of Britain in refusing arbitration and resorting
to force without a _casus belli_ to constitute an unjust attack, the
Free State Volksraad and burghers, who had done their utmost to avert
war, unhesitatingly threw in their lot with the sister Republic. The act
was desperate, but it was chivalric. The Free State, hitherto happy,
prosperous and peaceful, had nothing to gain and everything to lose. Few
of her statesmen can have doubted that Britain must prevail and that
their Republic would share the ruin which awaited the Transvaal Dutch.
Nevertheless honour and the sense of kinship prevailed. It is to be
hoped that the excited language in which the passionate feelings of the
Free State have found expression will not prevent Englishmen from
recognizing in the conduct of this little community a heroic quality
which they would admire if they met it in the annals of ancient Greece.

It has been suggested that the question of responsibility for the war is
really a trivial one, because the negotiations were all along, on one
side or on both, unreal and delusive, masking the conviction of both
parties that they must come to blows at last. It is said that a conflict
for supremacy between the English and Dutch races in South Africa was
inevitable, and it is even alleged that there was a long-standing
conspiracy among the Dutch, as well in the Colonies as in the Republics,
to overmaster the British element and oust Britain from the country.

On this hypothesis several observations may be made.

One is that it seems to be an afterthought, intended to excuse the
failure of diplomacy to untie the knot. No one who studies the
despatches can think that either the Transvaal Government or the British
Government regarded war as inevitable when the one made, and the other
sent a reply intended to accept, the proposals of August 19th. Nothing
is easier than to bring charges of bad faith, but he who peruses these
despatches with an impa