. .Should The War Continue A Few Months
Longer The Nation Will Become So Poor That They Will Be The Working
Class In The Country, And Disappear As A Nation In The Future.
.
.
The British are convinced that they have conquered the land and its
people, and consider the matter ended, and they only try to treat
magnanimously those who are continuing the struggle in order to
prevent unnecessary bloodshed.'
Such were the sentiments of those of the burghers who were in
favour of peace. Their eyes had been opened and their bitterness
was transferred from the British Government to those individual
Britons who, partly from idealism and partly from party passion,
had encouraged them to their undoing. But their attempt to convey
their feelings to their countrymen in the field ended in tragedy.
Two of their number, Morgendaal and Wessels, who had journeyed to
De Wet's camp, were condemned to death by order of that leader. In
the case of Morgendaal the execution actually took place, and seems
to have been attended by brutal circumstances, the man having been
thrashed with a sjambok before being put to death. The
circumstances are still surrounded by such obscurity that it is
impossible to say whether the message of the peace envoys was to
the General himself or to the men under his command. In the former
case the man was murdered. In the latter the Boer leader was within
his rights, though the rights may have been harshly construed and
brutally enforced.
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