This was a time of perpetual struggle with the blacks. Some of the tribes had been made tributary to the Republic, others were practically independent, and with these frequent and cruel wars were waged. Unspeakable atrocities were perpetrated on both sides—the Kaffirs slaughtering without mercy such white families as they were able to surprise in a defenseless state, and the Africanders inflicting vengeance without mercy when they came upon the savages in kraal or mountain stronghold. The whites could always defeat the natives in a pitched battle, but to hold so vast a number in subjection was beyond their power. And they seem to have relished everything connected with an expedition against the blacks but the expense; they had an invincible dislike to paying taxes for any purpose. In a rude way these Transvaal Africanders lived in the enjoyment of plenty derived from their flocks and herds, but metal currency was almost unknown to them. Such business as they transacted was mostly in the nature of barter. They were yet too crude and primitive in their ideas to value aright the benefits secured to a civilized community by a well organized and firmly administered government controlling fiscal and other domestic matters of general interest, as well as directing foreign policies. The public treasury was in a state of chronic emptiness. The paper currency depreciated more and more till in 1870 its purchasing value was only twenty-five per cent of its face value. Public works and proper internal administration were unknown. Largely, every man’s will was his law, which he was disposed to enforce upon others—whether black or white—by the strong hand. In 1872 Mr. Pretorius became cordially disliked by the people and was forced to resign the presidency, because he had accepted the finding of the arbitration which awarded the diamond fields to Nicholas Waterboer instead of to the Transvaal Republic. His successor, Mr. Burgess, a native of Cape Colony and an unfrocked clergyman of the Dutch Reformed Church, was an unfortunate choice. Learned, eloquent and energetic, he was nevertheless deficient in practical business wisdom and in political acumen, and he was much distrusted by the burghers on account of his theological opinions. Some of them charged that he was guilty of maintaining that the real Devil differed from the pictures of him in the old Dutch Bibles, in that he had no tail. For this and worse forms of heterodoxy he was blamed as the cause of the calamities experienced by the nation during his presidency. Mr. Burgers is said to have formed many visionary though patriotic plans for the development of his country and the extension of the Africander power over the whole of South Africa, but his people were not of the sort that could appreciate them, nor had he command of resources sufficient to carry them out.