Dr. Veale, a well-known Pretoria doctor, states that at daybreak on Thursday, January 2, Commandant Hendrik Schoeman called on him to secure his professional attendance for a member of his family who was very ill.  The Commandant said that he had been sent out on Monday to watch the invading force and to ascertain their numbers, and also stated that he had been following the troop with others for a considerable time and that he was sure Jameson had not 800 but between 450 and 500, as he had repeatedly counted them; that the force was being delayed by small parties drawing it into useless fighting and so losing time; that he himself had been obliged to come on ahead, having been recalled on account of his wife’s serious illness, but that it made little difference as there were others to take his place, and they had arranged not to tackle Jameson until they had drawn him among the kopjes at Doornkop, where it would be quite impossible for him ever to get through.  This statement it should be noted was made in Pretoria some hours before the Jameson force surrendered at Doornkop.

So certain do the Boers appear to have been, and so confident of their ability to carry out their plans, that they stated to a reporter of the Government newspaper that they intended to stop Jameson at Rietspruit (Doornkop), and this statement was published in a Johannesburg paper on the morning of January 1, but was of course regarded as mere gossip of a piece with that which flooded the newspapers at the time.  It is only right to add that there were numbers of other announcements at the same time which by no means agreed with this one, and it is stated that the editor was as much surprised as the public to find that he had been right.

In reviewing the whole of the circumstances of the raid, not the most biased and most interested of persons can withhold a tribute of admiration to the President’s presence of mind, skill, and courage in dealing with circumstances wholly without precedent; and in quiet moments, when recalling all that has happened, if human at all, his Honour must indulge in a chuckle now and then to think how completely he jockeyed everybody.{32} Not the least amusing recollection must be that of the ‘great trek’ (Banjailand Trek), which his burghers threatened to make into Mashonaland via Rhodes’ Drift when Sir John Willoughby gained his first experience of Oom Paul.  The military commander of Dr. Jameson’s force had called on the President to add weight to the remonstrances which were being made against the action of the burghers in invading the Chartered territory, and the President, playing his cards for a favourable settlement of Swaziland, had replied that he had done all that he could, and events must take their course.  ‘Tell him,’ said Sir John to Dr. Leyds who was interpreting, ’that if the trek is not stopped of course the result will be war!’ ‘If it must be, let it be,’ the old gentleman answered quietly.  ‘Then tell him,’ Sir John replied, ’that in that case he will have to reckon with the British Army.’  ‘And tell him’, said the President, pointing placidly at his interviewer with his big pipe, ‘that I have reckoned with the British Army once before.’  If the recollection occurred to both men on January 2, it must have been with different emotions.