160 Recollections of Adventures 



Government would take over and rule the country, 

 and the public should be made aware of the position ; 

 but that I did not like this trading upon the 

 immediate difficulties and fears of the executive and 

 Volksraad, and quiet annexation, and that I feared 

 trouble when the Boers had had time to think over 

 the matter, and had recovered from the present 

 depression, when those who were against the annex- 

 ation could organise. 



Sir T. Shepstone assured me that I was wrong, 

 that many members of the Raad had come to him at 

 night ; so as not to be seen by others, and had begged 

 him to go on, and annex the country, and not to 

 mind what they said in the Raad, where they were 

 not free to speak as they wished. I found out that 

 this statement of Sir T. Shepstone was true. Men 

 who talked loudly against the British rule were the 

 first to go to him. There is no room in this memoir 

 to mention a hundredth part of what took place at 

 this time ; a full history has been written by others. 

 There is no doubt that Sir T. Shepstone's promise to 

 remit the 10 war tax, affording a market for 

 produce, and the putting in order of the administra- 

 tive offices, tended to pacify the Boers at that time. 

 I will only record a few incidents. A brother of Mr. 

 Paul Kruger's, Tjaardt Kruger, brought in a load of 

 meal and some slaughter oxen to Pretoria, sold them 

 for a very high price in British coin, and I congratu- 

 lated him and said that the troops were useful to 

 him in bringing cash. He replied, " Yes, I know 

 that, but all this money I will spend in buying guns 

 and ammunition to shoot them/' He then asked me 

 to arrange a duel between him and Sir T. Shepstone 

 on the understanding that if he shot Shepstone, the 

 Transvaal was to be given back, and if Shepstone 

 shot him, he could keep the country. Sir Theophilus 



