Mr. Kruger was not a bitter enemy of the British nation, as might have been supposed. He was always an admirer of Britons and British institutions, and the war did not cause him to alter his convictions. He despised only the men whom he charged with being responsible for the war, and he never thought to hide the identity of those men. He blamed Mr. Rhodes, primarily, for instigating the war, and held Mr. Chamberlain and Sir Alfred Milner equally responsible for bringing it about. Against these three men he was extremely bitter, and he took advantage of every opportunity for expressing his opinions of them and their work. In February he stated that the real reason of the war between the Boers and the British was Rhodes's desire for glory. "He wants to be known as the maker of the South African empire," he said, "and the empire is not complete so long as there are two Republics in the centre of the country." Whatever were the causes of the war, it is certain that President Kruger did not make it in order to gain political supremacy in the country. The Dutch of Cape Colony, President Steyn of the Free State, and Secretary Reitz of the Transvaal, may have had visions of Dutch supremacy, but President Kruger had no such hopes. He invariably and strenuously denied that he had any aspirations other than the independence of his country, and all his words and works emphasised his statement to that effect. Several days before Commandant-General Joubert died, that intimate friend of the President declared solemnly that Kruger had never dreamt of expelling the British Government from South Africa and much less had made any agreement with the Dutch in other parts of the country with a view to such a result. It was a difficult matter to find a Transvaal Boer or a Boer from the northern part of the Free State who cared whether the British or the Dutch were paramount in South Africa so long as the Republics were left unharmed, but it was less difficult to meet Cape Colonists and Boers from the southern part of the Free State who desired that Great Britain's power in the country should be broken. If there was any real spirit against Great Britain it was born on British soil in Cape Colony and blown northward to where courage to fight was more abundant. Its source certainly was not in the north, and more certainly not with Paul Kruger, the man of peace.