What his secret thoughts were on this subject it is easy to guess.  Circumstances used to occur now and then when a stray word spoken on impulse allowed one to discern that he deplored the moment of weakness into which he had been inveigled.  For instance, during a dinner-party at Groote Schuur, when talking about the state of things prevailing in Johannesburg just before the war, he mentioned the names of five Reformers who, after the Raid, had been condemned to death by President Kruger, and added that he had paid their fine of twenty-five thousand pounds each.  “Yes,” he continued, with a certain grim accent of satire in his voice, “I paid L25,000 for each of these gentlemen.”  And when one of his guests tactlessly remarked, “But surely you need not have done so, Mr. Rhodes?  It was tacitly admitting that you had been a party to their enterprise!” he retorted immediately, “And if I choose to allow the world to think that such was the case, what business is it of yours?” I thought the man was going to drop under the table, so utterly flabbergasted did he look.

It is, of course, extremely difficult to know what was the actual part played by Rhodes in the Raid.  He carried that secret to the grave, and it is not likely that his accomplices will ever reveal their own share in the responsibility for that wild adventure.  My impression is that the idea of the Raid was started among the entourage of Rhodes and spoken of before him at length.  He would listen in silence, as was his wont when he wished to establish the fact that he had nothing to do with a thing that had been submitted to him.  Thus the Raid was tacitly encouraged by him, without his ever having pronounced himself either for or against it.

Rhodes was an extremely able politician, and a far-seeing one into the bargain.  He would never have committed himself into an open approval of an attempt which he knew perfectly well involved the rights of nations.  On the other hand, he would have welcomed any circumstance which would result in the overthrow of the Transvaal Republic by friends of his.  His former successes, and especially the facility with which had been carried out the attachment of Rhodesia to the British Empire, had refracted his vision, and he refused—­or failed—­to see the difficulties which he might encounter if he wanted to proceed for the second time on an operation of the same kind.

On the other hand, he was worried by his friends to allow them to take decisive action, and was told that everyone in England would approve of his initiative in taking upon himself the responsibility of a step, out of which could only accrue solid advantage for the Mother Country.