In the meantime two deputations had been sent to England, representing the Boers' case against annexation. The active party among the Boers, _i.e._, the Voortrekker party, the most anti-British and Republican, though small in itself, had now succeeded in completely dominating the rest of the Boers, and galvanizing them into something like national life and cohesion again--a result achieved partly by earnest persuasion, but largely also by a kind of terrorism. Sir Bartle Frere, who managed at last to visit the Transvaal, in April, 1879, had evidence of this on his journey up, and in a despatch to Sir M. Hicks Beach from Standerton on the 6th of that month he wrote: I was particularly impressed by the replies of a very fine specimen of a Boer of the old school. He had been six weeks in an English prison, daily expecting execution as a rebel, and had been wounded by all the enemies against whom his countrymen had fought--English, Zulus, Basutos, Griquas, and Bushmen. 'But,' he said, 'that was in the days of my youth and inexperience. Had I known then what I know now, I would never have fought against the English, and I will never fight them again. Old as I am, I would now gladly turn out against the Zulus, and take fifty friends of my own, who would follow me anywhere; but I dare not leave my home till assured it will not be destroyed and my property carried off in my absence, by the men who call me "rebel" because I will not join them against the Government. My wife, brought up like a civilized woman in the Cape Colony, has had five times in her life to run from the house and sleep in the veld when attacked by Zulus and Basutos. One of our twelve sons was assegaied in sight of our house, within the last ten it was surrounded by Basutos, my wife had to fly in the night by herself, leading one child and carrying another on her back. She walked nearly fifty miles through the Lion Veld, seeing three lions on the way, before she reached a place of safety. It is not likely that we should forget such things, nor wish them to recur; but how can I leave her on my farm and go to Zululand, when the malcontent leaders threaten me that if I go they will burn my house and drive off all my stock? Assure me that we are not to be deserted by the English Government, and left to the mercy of these malcontent adventurers, and I and my people will gladly turn out to assist Colonel Wood.' _I find that this idea that the English Government will give up the Transvaal, as it formerly did the Orange Free State, has been industriously propagated, and has taken a great hold on the minds of the well-disposed Boers, and is, I believe, one main cause of reluctance to support the Government actively_. _They argue that what has been done before may be done again, and they have no feeling of assurance that if they stand by the English Government to-day they will not be left to bear the brunt of the malcontents' vengeance when a Republic is established_.