During the weeks which followed the conclusion of the arrangement considerable dissatisfaction was felt at the very slow progress made in obtaining arms.  The number originally agreed to was deemed to be sufficient but no more; and when it was first found that it would not be possible to obtain this number but that a few hundreds less would have to be accepted, doubts were freely expressed as to the wisdom of proceeding until a sufficient supply had been obtained.  When on two subsequent occasions it was again notified that still a few hundred less would have to be accepted, some members of the Reform Party were very emphatic in their objections to proceeding any further until they should be satisfied that the undertakings upon the strength of which they had entered upon the arrangement would be faithfully adhered to.  On the occasion of Dr. Jameson’s last visit it had been extracted from him that instead of 1,500 men he would probably start with from 800 to 1,000.  These discrepancies and alterations caused the liveliest dissatisfaction in the minds of those who realized that they were entering upon a very serious undertaking; but although the equipment seemed poor, reliance was always placed on the taking of Pretoria Fort.  That at any rate was a certainty, and it would settle the whole thing without a blow; for Johannesburg would have everything, and the Boers would have rifles, but neither ammunition nor field-guns.  Without doubt the Pretoria arsenal was the key of the position, and it is admitted by Boer and alien alike that it lay there unguarded, ready to be picked up, and that nothing in the world could have saved it—­except what did!

On or about December 19, Messrs. Woolls-Sampson and A. Bailey, two Johannesburg men concerned in the movement, who had been in communication with Mr. Rhodes and others in Cape Town, arrived in Johannesburg, and indicated clearly that the question as to which flag was to be raised was either deemed to be a relatively unimportant one or one concerning which some of the parties had not clearly and honestly expressed their intentions.  In simple truth, it appeared to be the case that Dr. Jameson either thought that the Johannesburg reformers were quite indifferent on the subject of the flag, or assumed that the provisions for the maintenance of the Transvaal flag were merely talk, and that the Union Jack would be hoisted at once.  Nothing was further from the truth.  The Reform Party in Johannesburg included men to whom the Union Jack is as dear as their own heart’s blood, but it also included many others to whom that flag does not appeal—­men of other nationalities and other associations and other sympathies.  It included—­perhaps the strongest element of all—­those men whose sympathies were naturally and most strongly all for British rule, which they believed to be the best in the world, but whose judgment showed them that to proclaim that rule would be to defeat the very objects they honestly had in view,