All this and much more was done in the interests of peace by the Dutch colonists.  Both before and during the war they did all they possibly could to rescue or redeem South Africa from the horrors and calamities of a disastrous war.  They failed.  Was it their fault?  Was it right to brand as rebels and traitors every Cape Colonial that protested against the war, and refused to assist the mighty British Empire against the Republics?

The Africander Bond—­a political organization at the Cape—­was the scape-goat during the war.  Those who were in search of a pretext for the cause of the war and its continuation found it in this organization.  Everything that was low and mean was laid to the charge of the Africander Bond.  Its unwearied efforts to induce the English to terminate a war, declared and carried on in direct opposition to the wishes of tens of thousands of England’s devoted subjects, were construed into being so many encouragements for the Republicans to continue the struggle.  The Worcester conference was said to have encouraged and invited General De Wet to invade the Colony—­an invasion which was planned long before the conference was held, and which failed in the first instance, and only succeeded three months after the conference had met!

When all the efforts of the Cape Dutch failed, and the voice of the people was not regarded but systematically suppressed, it is not strange that there were men who found it impossible to remain silent and inactive in such circumstances.  Gradually their loyalty was being undermined.  The strain placed upon it was too great; it was stretched to the breaking point.  They enlisted and took the field against the forces of that Government which they once loved so well, and then—­despised.

This brings us to some of the more direct causes of the colonial rebellion, which we shall enumerate in succession.  The war with the Republics was an aggression on a kindred race, and was declared and conducted to the extreme displeasure, and in direct opposition to the wishes, of the Dutch colonists, who spared themselves neither pain nor trouble to ward off or terminate a war which was bound to inflict great misery on themselves, and on thousands with whom they were intimately connected by ties of blood and friendship.  For are the Transvaal and Free State Boers not the sons and daughters of those pioneers that emigrated from the Cape Colony between the years 1834-40, in search of an independent home beyond the Orange and Vaal rivers?  Moreover, among the burghers of the Republics there were several colonists who, prior to the war, had settled in the Transvaal, chiefly in Johannesburg and Pretoria, as well as in the Orange Free State.  These colonial settlers constituted another link in the chain which bound the Cape Dutch to the Boers.  They regarded the Republics as their native land, and consequently came to their assistance in the hour of danger.  There they had found a home, acquired wealth in some instances,