11
that in such a question counter-demonstrations were unlikely, because true Englishmen and loyal subjects; never doubting that the Government would stand to the words placed in the mouth of the Sovereign, and make the re-establishment of her authority the essential precursor of any peace, did not deem it necessary to raise an agitation in support of those principles of loyalty to which the Government were pledged, Her Majesty's Ministers seem to have come to the unhappy and mistaken conclusion that the voices of a few miserable demagogues expressed the real feeling of the people of Great Britain, and that the disciples of "peace at any price" had really the command of popular opinion.
A few words will suffice to show the melancholy results of this Ministerial delusion. The rebellion began by a refusal to pay taxes and the proclamation of the rebel Triumvirate that they had assumed government at Heidelberg. Let Englishmen well note the next event. Col. Anstruther, with a detachment of the 94th Regiment, with baggage, women, and children, was marching, as in time of peace, from Middleburgh to Pretoria upon the 20th Dec, 1880. No war had been declared, no attack was expected, when suddenly scouts appeared, and a man bearing a white flag rode up to Col. Anstruther and delivered him a letter signed by the Boer Triumvirate, Kruger, Pretorius, and Joubert, saying that they "wished him to stop where he was." To prove that what followed was no fair warlike engagement, it is only necessary to quote the words of this letter, which stated that a "Diplomatic Commissioner" had been sent to the British Governor, Sir 0. Lanyon, and "until the arrival of His Excellency's answer, we do not know whether we are in a state of war or not." Col. Anstruther replied that he had orders to march to Pretoria, which he must obey, but that he had "no wish to meet the Boers hostilely," and asked the messenger to "take his message to the Boer Commandant-General and let him know the result, to which he nodded assent." But, whilst Col. Anstruther was reading this letter, the Boers, taking advantage of the flag of truce, were quietly circling round, and taking up positions from which they had already marked and measured the distances by stones, thus showing that they had planned and carried out a murderous ambuscade." Almost immediately the enemy's line advanced, and our poor English soldiers, completely taken by surprise, were shot down before they had time to form; every officer but one was picked off at the first volley, and 157 men killed and wounded out of a total force of under 250. Unarmed servants of officers were shot dead in cold blood, and one woman was seriously wounded. Never in the annals of warfare was perpetrated a more cruel and cold-blooded massacre, indefensible either by the rules of warfare or any code of laws in existence among civilised communities. What, then, was the duty of the British Government? Clearly, before any peace was made with the insurgent Boers, to demand a full reparation, so far as reparation
