Page:The truth about the Transvaal.djvu/8

 mass of evidence on the other side, the truth may be gathered from recent publications of the insurgent Boers themselves, who may be judged out of their own mouths. In Blue Book C. 2866, presented to Parliament in April, 1881, at page 169 will be found a copy of the "Petition of Rights addressed to his Honour the President of the Orange Free State and the Honourable the Volksraad on the occasion of their special sitting on the 17th of February, 1881." This document is dated "South African Republic, Government House, Heidelberg, February 7th, 1881," and is signed "In the name of the Triumvirate, S. J. P. Kruger, Vice-President." It contains among other things a statement which every Englishman who values the Colonial Empire of Great Britain will do well to bear in mind, inasmuch as it shows that the ultimate aim of the rebel Boers is not only to possess the Transvaal, but to banish English influence altogether from South Africa, which indeed they claim to hold as "Africa for the Africanders." This statement is that "in the cession of the Cape of Good Hope by the King of Holland to England upon the fall of Napoleon I. lies the root of the evil out of which subsequent events and our present struggle have grown," and it goes on to state that "the great exodus from the Colony is of later date subsequent to 1834, when, owing to the forced liberation of the slaves, our old patriarchal farms were suddenly ruined." The truth is that these men, of whom Mr. Chamberlain tells us that "they are animated by a deep and somewhat stern religious sentiment," and that they have an "unconquerable love of freedom and of liberty," are not prevented by the first from loving the last only when enjoyed by themselves, and denying either "liberty" or "freedom" to those nations whom they consider born to slavery. As their love for slavery, and desire to treat the native races in a manner which British humanity could not tolerate, lay at the root of the determination of the Boers to reject British dominion, so the same feelings have prevailed amongst them ever since, and have been mainly instrumental in causing the state of anarchy, confusion, and perpetual warfare between black and white men which really brought about the annexation of the Transvaal in 1877. If their denial of slave-practices be true, whence did it arise that in the Sand River Convention of 1852, which the Boers quote as their Charter of Independence, it was thought necessary to insert a special provision that "No slavery is or shall be permitted or practised to the north of the Vaal by the emigrant farmers?" There is overwhelming proof that this provision was constantly violated by the Boers; the Blue Books presented to Parliament absolutely teem with such proof, gathered from the writings of Dr. Livingstone, the letters of Mr. Chesson (Secretary to the Aborigines Protection Society), the independent colonial press, the frequent reports of British officials in the Colonies, the solemn resolutions of the Natal Legislature in 1868, and the reiterated and piteous complaints of the native tribes themselves. This evidence was