"Then the cause was unexpectedly helped on by the courageous
resistance of O. Bezuidenhout against the seizure of his household
effects for non-payment of taxes. Here was a breach of the law easy
to lay hold of; here was a crime indeed! It was illegal,
undoubtedly, but illegal in the same sense as was the refusal of
Hampden to pay the four or five shillings "ship money"; the taking
of den Briel by the Watergeuzen (Waterbeggars) in 1572; as was the
throwing overboard of a cargo of tea in Boston; as was the plot in
Cape Colony against the importation of convicts. All these acts
were illegal, but of such are the illegalities in which a people
takes refuge, when a Government fails in its duty to a law higher
than that of man."

In virtue of the principles invoked by the Boers, the Johannesburg
Uitlanders entered into a conspiracy; Jameson was to come to their aid
after they had risen. Messrs. Leonard and Phillips put themselves in
communication with Cecil Rhodes. He listened to their manifesto, and the
instant they came to the mention of free trade in South Africa, he said:
"That will do for me." The supposition that he desired to annex the
Transvaal is absurd.[1] He has admitted that he gave his personal
co-operation to Jameson without having first consulted his colleagues of
the Chartered Company. Jameson was to have gone to the assistance of the
Uitlanders; not to forestall the insurrection, which was fixed for
January 4th. On December 29th, Jameson invaded the Transvaal with 480
men. They got as far as Krugersdorp, about 31 miles distant from
Johannesburg, and after a fight at Doornkop, in which the Raiders'
losses were 18 killed and 40 wounded, and on the Boers' side four killed
and five wounded, they surrendered on the condition that their lives
should be spared.