and replaced it by others calculated to harass the surrendered Boer to such an extent that war, with all its hardships and dangers, seemed preferable to a life of continual dread and vexation, thousands of surrendered burghers who enlisted would assuredly never have fired a shot at the British troops.  And it is just possible that that proclamation would have secured victory for the British arms at a much earlier date had it been abided by with more discretion.  But then others came in quick succession.  And so it often happened that by proclamation a burgher would be disarmed while another would compel ten others to take the field.  They were undoubtedly the best commandeering agents the Boers ever had.  Thousands of Boers and Colonists were from time to time commandeered by the stringent and drastic obligations imposed upon them by these proclamations.  On the other hand they facilitated matters very greatly for the enemy.  Where the soldier could not go the proclamation was sent; what the former could not do the latter often successfully accomplished.  Officers and burghers who had baffled the enemy by their movements, and had routed them time and again, were captured by—­proclamations.

Everything and anything the enemy required was secured by proclamation.  Horses, mules, donkeys, oxen, ammunition, rifles, barley, wheat, hay, corn, maize, vehicles, and even luxuries, such as sugar, jams, etc., were all gathered in by—­proclamations.  Besides, by proclamation the non-combatant farmer, who was supposed to be neutral, was compelled to report, at the nearest column or British post, the presence or whereabouts of any armed Boer or Boers that he might happen to know of—­and that immediately, even at the risk of being shot should he fall into the hands of the enemy he was reporting.  Losing his life was, of course, a matter of little consequence to the British.

When the enemy adopted such tactics, the Boers had to counteract their proclamations by circulating others.  Now in doing that the non-combatants were placed between two fires.  They had to serve two masters in carrying out the instructions of proclamations diametrically opposed to each other.  The man who was ingenious enough to act a double part, who could steer clear of Charybdis and Scylla, alone evaded trouble.  There were, however, not many who succeeded in pleasing or duping both parties for any length of time.

The Boer proclamations levelled at those of the English made it specially irksome to the Colonists, who were finally encompassed by a host of proclamations.  When they failed to obey the English proclamations they were fined, cast into gaol, and treated as criminals.  When they obeyed the English, and consequently violated the Boer proclamations, they had to undergo the penalty, fines, corporal punishment, and even death, imposed by the Boers.  The English said:  “This do, and thou shalt live”; the Boers:  “This do not, and thou shalt live.”