The Transvaal from Within: A Private Record of Public AffairsFitzpatrick, Percy
History
The Transvaal from Within: A Private Record of Public Affairs
Fitzpatrick, Percy
Jameson's Raid, 1895-1896; Transvaal (South Africa) -- Politics and government -- 1880-1910
There we have the story of President Kruger and his friends playing
exactly the part Dr. Jameson and the Johannesburg Reformers tried to
do. As Potchefstroom rose under Mr. Kruger against the oligarchical
rule of Lydenburg, so Johannesburg was to rise against Pretoria. The
Potchefstroom Republic under Pretorius and Kruger made a raid _a la_
Jameson into the Orange Free State for political purposes, to
encourage those who were believed to be anxious to effect a
union. And just as Jameson failed against the Government of Pretoria,
so Pretorius failed against the Government of the Orange Free State.
In 1857 it was Paul Kruger not Dr. Jameson who hoisted the white
flag. The Free Staters who had tried to help Kruger's raid were
arrested just as the Johannesburgers were; but although one of them
was condemned to death all of them were released, by the intervention
of Mr. Kruger himself, on paying a slight fine.
History has repeated itself indeed; but the offence of Dr. Jameson is
surely less than that of Mr. Kruger, if we are to pay heed to the
records of the Free State Volksraad, wherein it is written that on a
certain day the President stated in open Raad that proof had been
obtained of a proposed combined attack on the Free State by the
Transvaal Boers, led by Pretorius and Kruger on the one side, and the
Basutos under Moshesh on the other--a horrible and unnatural alliance
which was not effected only because Moshesh could not trust his
professed allies. The Raad thereupon publicly gave thanks to the
Almighty, Who had revealed and frustrated this 'hideous complot.'
Footnotes for Chapter VI
{24} In the Report of the Select Committee of the House of Commons
the following questions and answers occur, Mr. Blake questioning and
Major Heany replying:
'Having got the message you went off with it and you got in, as we
see by the evidence, as quickly as you could, and you just gave the
message as accurately as you could to Dr. Jameson?--I read the
message from my note-book absolutely accurately to Dr. Jameson.
'And he did not lose much time in making up his mind?--No; he went
outside his tent. He was in a bell-tent when I arrived and he went
outside and walked up and down for about twenty minutes, and then he
came in and announced his determination.'
{25} In the course of the Inquiry at Westminster, Dr. Jameson
himself took occasion to explain this reference, when answering a
question put by Mr. Sidney Buxton.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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