THE RETROCESSION OF THE TRANSVAAL. The Queen's Speech--President Brand and Lord Kimberley--Sir Henry de Villiers--Sir George Colley's plan--Paul Kruger's offer--Sir George Colley's remonstrance--Complimentary telegrams--Effect of Majuba on the Boers and English Government--Collapse of the Government--Reasons of the surrender--Professional sentimentalists --The Transvaal Independence Committee--Conclusion of the armistice --The preliminary peace--Reception of the news in Natal--Newcastle after the declaration of peace--Exodus of the loyal inhabitants of the Transvaal--The value of property in Pretoria--The Transvaal officials dismissed--The Royal Commission--Mode of trial of persons accused of atrocities--Decision of the Commission and its results --The severance of territory question--Arguments _pro_ and _con_-- Opinion of Sir E. Wood--Humility of the Commissioners and its cause --Their decision on the Keate Award question--The Montsioa difficulty --The compensation and financial clauses of the report of the Commission--The duties of the British Resident--Sir E. Wood's dissent from the report of the Commission--Signing of the Convention--Burial of the Union Jack--The native side of the question--Interview between the Commissioners and the native chiefs--Their opinion of the surrender--Objections of the Boer Volksraad to the Convention--Mr. Gladstone temporises--The ratification--Its insolent tone--Mr. Hudson, the British Resident --The Boer festival--The results of the Convention--The larger issue of the matter--Its effect on the Transvaal--Its moral aspects--Its effect on the native mind 156-202 CHAPTER VII. Extract from Introduction to new edition of 1888 203 APPENDIX. I. The Potchefstroom Atrocities, &c. 231 II. Pledges given by Mr. Gladstone's Government as to the Retention of the Transvaal 239 III. A Boer on Boer Designs 241 _THE TRANSVAAL._ CHAPTER I. ITS INHABITANTS, LAWS, AND CUSTOMS. The Transvaal is a country without a history. Its very existence was hardly known of until about fifty years ago. Of its past we know nothing. The generations who peopled its great plains have passed utterly out of the memory and even the tradition of man, leaving no monument to mark that they have existed, not even a tomb.