This is exactly what the Cape Dutch did when some of them rose in rebellion. Their loyalty was gradually undermined as the war assumed the character of conquest and extermination. It was too much for many a Colonial to be a silent spectator when thousands of women and children pined away in concentration camps; and the military authorities, apparently wreaking vengeance on these because the burghers would not surrender, positively refused to allow these Boer families to reside with their relatives or friends in the Cape Colony, or live _at their own cost_ in garrisoned towns, where they would have no intercourse with the burghers. When the weak and defenceless became the victims of the war, and received such treatment, the Cape Dutch were incited to violent actions. They rose to protect the weak against the strong, the few against the many. In so doing have they committed the unpardonable sin? Or will there be mercy even for these? The Colonists were left unprotected at the tender mercy of the Boer forces. When the Boers, on the declaration of war, crossed the colonial borders and pushed ahead into British territory, they found the districts and most of the villages in an entirely defenceless condition. The garrison of Aliwal North consisted of three Cape policemen. Colesberg, Venterstad, Burghersdorp, Lady Grey, James Town, Dordrecht, Rhodes, and many other places were occupied one after the other, without being in the least protected. In Natal, Griqualand West, and British Bechuanaland it was not any better. The Colonists thought that they were subjects of a vast and mighty empire, to which they could confidently look for protection against invaders. If they had any fears, these were hushed, for surely the mother-country was powerful enough to shelter them from the withering blasts of war. To their astonishment the mother-country could protect neither their persons nor their property, but entrusted all to the care of the Boer commandoes. Had the Colonists no claim to protection? Was it their fault that the British Government had accepted an ultimatum before they were prepared to extend to their colonial subjects that protection to which they certainly had a lawful claim? Such questions the Colonists asked themselves and the Home Government. Left unprotected, and literally forsaken for months by their own Government, they yielded to the temptation to make common cause with the Boers, whom they met and saw daily. They enlisted in considerable numbers, and so cast in their lot for better or for worse with the Boers. Still the majority of the colonial farmers remained at home, and those who joined the Boer ranks at the commencement of the war were, as a rule, commandeered or called up. By proclamation all Colonists who resided within the occupied territory received the option either of leaving it within a certain time, or of staying, on condition of submitting to the Martial Law regulations of the new Government.