Somewhat sarcastically;--for he is well aware that when England repudiated him,--declaring that she would have nothing to do with him across the Orange River, she did so with contempt and almost with aversion. And he is as well aware that England now wants to get him back again. The double consciousness is of a nature likely to beget sarcasm. “You thought nothing of me when I came here a poor wanderer, daring all dangers in order that I might escape from your weaknesses, your absurdities, your mock philanthropies,--when I shook off from the sole of my foot the dust of a country in which the black Savage was preferred to the white Colonist; but now,--now that I have established myself successfully,--you would fain have me back again so that your broad borders may be extended, and your widened circle made complete. But, by the Providence of God, after many difficulties we are well as we are;--and therefore we are able to decline your offers.” That is the gist of what the Boer is saying when he tells us of the independence bestowed upon him by Her Majesty. Thinking as I do that Great Britain was wrong when she repudiated the Orange Free State in 1854, believing that there was then a lack of patience at the Colonial Office and that we should have been better advised had we borne longer with the ways of the Dutch, I must still acknowledge here that they were a provoking people, and one hard to manage. Omitting small details and some few individual instances of misrule, I feel that when the Dutch complained of us they complained of what was good in our ways and not of what was evil. It was with this conviction that we repudiated both the Transvaal and the other younger but more stable Republic. Good excuses can be made for what we did,--not the worst of which is the fact that a people whom we desired to rule themselves, have ruled themselves well. But we did repudiate them, and I do not know with what face we can ask them to return to us. If the offer came from them of course we could assent; but that offer will hardly be made.