I am to see a deputation from the Boers' Committee again to-morrow,
and then I hope we shall have done with meetings and grievances--for
the present a phrase which they carefully put into all references to
their breaking up, and which they evidently mean. _It was clear to me
that it was not the annexation, so much as the neglect to fulfil the
promises and the expectations held out by Shepstone when he took
over the Government, that has stirred up the great mass of the
Boers, and given a handle to agitators._{02}

There it is in a single sentence! It was not the annexation which
caused the war; for nine men in every ten admitted that it was
welcomed and justified by considerations of general South African
policy, or else simply inevitable. No! It was the failure to fulfil
the conditions of annexation!

In 'A Narrative of the Boer War,' Mr. Thomas Fortescue Carter has
given with admirable skill and impartiality a full account of the
causes which led to the outbreak. His history is, indeed, so
determinedly just as to have met with considerable disapproval in
quarters where feelings are hot on either side, and where plain
truths are not palatable. Mr. Carter resided in the country for years
before the annexation, and went through the war as correspondent of a
well-known London daily, and this is his opinion:

Anyone who knows the acquaintance Sir T. Shepstone had with the Boers
of the Transvaal, years prior to the annexation, cannot doubt that,
regarded as a friend and almost as one of themselves, no one better
than he could have been selected for the task of ascertaining the
desires of the people; and no one who knows Sir T. Shepstone will