But though outwardly Mr. Gladstone's attitude was the attitude of a strong man, he took no precautions to meet Boer discontent. The warnings of Sir Bartle Frere, the British governor at the Cape, were unheeded. Sir Michael Hicks-Beach had thrown him over once because he had not been able to prevent the Zulu war; Mr. Gladstone now recalled him at the very time when a brave, loyal, far-sighted, single-hearted man, such as Bartle Frere undoubtedly was, was most needed in South Africa. Abandoned by both parties, betrayed, and treated with a contumelious contempt which his noble services had never deserved, he turned his face sadly towards England. Two months later the Transvaal rose in revolt. [Illustration: FREE STATE ARTILLERY AT BLOEMFONTEIN. The standing armies of both the Orange Free State and the Transvaal consist of a few hundred State Artillery, largely recruited and officered by Germans and Hollanders. This picture shows the Orange Free State Artillery in gala uniform on the way to parade. They are commanded by Major Albrecht, a German.] [Sidenote: Majuba.] In quick succession three checks, or positive defeats, were inflicted upon a small British force, the most serious that of Majuba. The British government had announced that, come what might, it would suppress the insurrection, but losing heart and terrified by the prospect of a Dutch rising in the Cape, it conceded to the insurgents a limited measure of self-government, and strove to delude the world by talk of magnanimity. It explained that there was real nobility in receding from its pledges and giving way to a small but victorious force of Boers. Many people at the time doubted this nobility, and by an explicit statement of Lord Kimberley on November 14, 1899, the surrender is now known to have been due to cowardice, and to cowardice alone. [Illustration: SIR BARTLE FRERE (the centre figure at the table), STAFF, CHAPLAIN, AND SECRETARY OUTSIDE THE BRITISH RESIDENCY IN PRETORIA, 1880.] A settlement based upon cowardice could never last, could never prove satisfactory. The Transvaal Government used Mr. Gladstone's fears as a lever to extort a fresh convention and get fresh concessions. Its attitude to England was almost openly hostile. [Sidenote: The Outlanders.] [Sidenote: 1881-1896.] _The English a Subject Race._]