The Transvaal State, as it was now to be called, was re-established, having had its trade restored, its enemies crushed—­for Secocoeni and Cetewayo were both defeated and broken—­and its debts paid or consolidated in the form of a debt to England, repayable when possible.  For some time not even the interest on this debt was paid.

Numbers of British subjects left the country in disgust and despair.  Ruined in pocket and broken in spirit, they took what little they could realize of their once considerable possessions, and left the country where they could no longer live and enjoy the rights of free men.  For some years the life of a Britisher among the Boers was far from happy.  It is not surprising—­indeed, not unnatural—­that people unsoftened by education and the conditions of civilization, moved by fierce race prejudice, and intoxicated by unbroken and unexpected success, should in many cases make the vanquished feel the conqueror’s heel.  The position of men of British name or sympathies in the country districts was very serious, and the injustice done to those who had settled since the annexation, believing that they were to live under the laws and protection of their own Government was grave indeed.

The Government of the country was vested in a Triumvirate with Mr. Stephanus Johannes Paulus Kruger as Vice-President during the period immediately following the war; but in 1882 the old form was restored and Mr. Kruger was elected President, an office which he is now holding for the third successive term.{06}

Prior to the war the population of the country was reckoned by both Dutch and English authorities to be about 40,000 souls, the great majority of whom were Dutch.  The memorial addressed to Lord Carnarvon, dated January 7, 1878, praying for repeal of the annexation, was ’signed by 6,591 qualified electors out of a possible 8,000,’ as is explained in the letter of the Transvaal delegates to Sir M. Hicks-Beach dated July 10, 1878.  The fact, already mentioned, that 3,000 electors had petitioned for the annexation only means that some of them changed their minds under pressure or conviction, and helped to swell the number of those who later on petitioned for repeal.  The signatories to the above memorial would include practically all the Dutch electors in the country, and the remaining 1,400 or so would probably be the non-Boer party who preferred British rule, and could not be coerced into signing memorials against it.  These figures are useful as a check upon those now put forward by the Transvaal Government to combat the assertion that the Uitlanders outnumber the Boers.  Recognizing the fact that the Boers are a singularly domestic and prolific people, one may allow that they numbered 35,000 out of the total population, an estimate that will be seen to be extremely liberal.  At the time that the above figures were quoted by the Transvaal delegates every Boer youth over the age of twenty-one was a qualified voter, so that it would