This was the only affair in which the Naval Brigade were engaged during the war, as, shortly afterwards, just as they were hoping to retrieve the disasters which had befallen the force,--the reinforcements from England having now come up to the spot,--peace was made, the Transvaal was surrendered to the Boers, and the sacrifices made and the blood which had been shed were shown to have been spent in vain. The intense disappointment of the troops at this summary and unexpected termination of the campaign was fully shared by the bluejackets and marines. The defeat at Majuba Hill was a great blow to British prestige, but it was one that, in the course of the war which all the world expected to follow, could have been speedily retrieved, but the effect upon the Dutch must have remained. It seemed, indeed, as if in fighting for freedom they were truly invincible, and as if they could withstand the power of Great Britain, and defeat it, just as their fathers, a few hundred in number, had withstood Dingaan and defeated his thousands of warriors. This impression was greatly strengthened by the action of the British Government. The Liberal party in England had undertaken the war with very little fervour, to many the cause of the Boer was the cause of freedom, and the sight of a small peasant nation, armed as it then was only with rifles, rising against the power of Great Britain, appealed to the sentiment of many people, to whom the great popular orator had repeatedly declared that the act of annexation was an act of tyranny. Still the war was the act of their great leader, and had therefore been supported; moreover, regarded as a military matter only, the defeat was of no importance; the various British garrisons in the country were manfully holding their own; Sir Evelyn Wood was gathering sufficient force to take action; he held, he said, the Boers in the hollow of his hand,--so the war must go on, and Sir F (now Lord) Roberts was sent out to take command. Mr Gladstone now suddenly changed his mind; further prosecution of the war, he said, would be "sheer blood-guiltiness." He gave the Boers their independence, but they and all the world noted that he did not discover the blood-guiltiness of the war before the defeat, and they drew their inferences; and to their dislike of British rule, added a contempt for British courage, which led their leaders into a course of action which culminated in an ambition to substitute Dutch for British throughout South Africa, and thus brought down upon the two republics the ruin and disasters of the great war of 1899-1901. CHAPTER TWENTY NINE. THE BOER WAR IN 1900. THE SIEGE OF LADYSMITH.