It was in 1848 that Sir Harry Smith, who was then in Natal, whither he had gone intending if possible to conciliate the Dutch would-be Republicans in that country, at last found himself compelled to claim for the mother country sovereignty over the region between the Orange and the Vaal rivers, and this proclamation he had to support by arms. Pretorius, who had become the leader of the Dutch in Natal, and who on account of personal slights to himself was peculiarly hostile to the English, came over the Drakenburg mountains, and put himself at the head of his countrymen between the rivers. He gathered together an army,--a commando, as it was then called in South African language,--and coming near to Bloemfontein ordered Major Warden, the British Resident, to move himself off into the Cape Colony south of the river with all that he had about him of soldiers and officials. This the Major did, and then Pretorius prepared himself to encounter with his Boers the offended majesty of Great Britain in arms. The reader will perhaps remember that the Dutch had done the same thing in Natal,--and had at first been successful. Then, on 29th August, 1848, was fought the battle of Boom Plats half-way between the Orange River and Bloemfontein. Sir Harry Smith, the Governor, had come himself with six or seven hundred English soldiers and were joined by a small body of Griquas,--who were as a matter of course hostile to the Dutch. There were collected together about a thousand Dutch farmers all mounted. They were farmers, ready enough to fight, but not trained soldiers. More English were killed or wounded than Dutch. A dozen Dutchmen fell, and about four times that number of English. But the English beat the Dutch. This decided the fate of that territory for a short time,--and it became British under the name of the Orange River Sovereignty. Pretorius with his friends trekked away north, crossed the Vaal River, and there founded the Transvaal Republic,--as has been told elsewhere. A reward of £2,000 was offered for his apprehension;--an offer which might have been spared and which was happily made in vain.