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 £25,000 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