^n THE TRUTH ABOUT THE JAMESON RAID THE TRUTH ABOUT THE JAMESON RAID By JOHN HAYS HAMMOND AS RELATED TO ALLEYNE IRELAND BOSTON MARSHALL JONES COMPANY MDCCCCXVIII COPYRIGHT, I918 BY MARSHALL JONES COMPANY All rights reserved By permission of The North American Review PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA BY THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, MASS. DT Preface The contents of this volume appeared in the August and September numbers of the "North American Review," 1918. Following their publication I received so many requests that a more permanent form should be given to the material that I have had this little volume issued. I wish to express my indebtedness to His Eminence Cardinal Gibbons, to the Hon. S William H. Taft, to the Hon. E. M. House, to President Arthur T. Hadley, and to the ^ Hon. Oscar S. Straus, for their permission C to print the letters which they have been ^ good enough to send me in regard to "The Vv Truth About the Jameson Raid." ^^ I take the occasion also to acknowledge e coui ew" ii articles. N^ the courtesy of the "North American Re- ^^view" in allowing the republication of the » 1 f-ti r" I /^o John Hays Hammond. October, 1918. [v] 402896 Washington, D, C, Oct. 24, 191 8, My dear Mr. Hammond: — I am very glad to hear that your clear, calm, and moderate statement of the injustice and outrage of the Kruger Government is to be published in a form which will reach the people of the United States. It is of the utmost importance to show the real ground for the action of England in fighting the Boer War and in producing the present condition of pros- perity, happiness, and loyalty of the Boer people. It is well to have the facts clearly brought out to show the attitude of Germany, which was of a piece with her foreign policy before and since, and the high purpose of those who were the first movers towards the freedom of the Transvaal, and whose course is emi- nently justified by the result. Yours very sincerely, Wm. H. Taft. Cardinal's Residence, 408 N. Charles St., Baltimore, Oct. 16, 191 8. Dear Mr. Hammond: — In these days when History is being made so fast your booklet " The Truth About the Jameson Raid " will be appreciated by students who are investigating the intrigues which flourished in so many parts of the world previous to the World War, and which have been looked upon as part of the preparation for the present struggle to secure world domination by the Central Powers. Faithfully yours, J. Card. Gibbons, Archbishop of Baltimore. [vi] Yale University, New Haven, Conn. President's Office, Oct. 4, 19 18. My dear Air. Hammond : — The articles on " The True Story of the Jameson Raid," which Mr. Ireland has written on the basis of information which you have furnished, are of extraor- dinary interest. They throw light, not only on the circumstances which preceded and followed the raid itself, but also on the character of President Kruger's policy, and indirectly also on the international policy of Germany as a whole. This last aspect of the matter gives them renewed interest today. It is one of the many pieces of history which throw light on the attempt of the German emperor to establish a new world hege- mony, if not an actual world empire; and j'ou have done good service in contributing the testimony of an eye witness to this chapter of historj'. Very sincerely, (Signed) Arthur T. Hadley. New York City, Sept. 5, 1918. My dear Mr. Hammond: — I want to say how much I enjoyed reading, in the " North American Review," your " True Story of the Jameson Raid." It is most interesting and most in- forming, and 3'ou have rendered a distinct service in clarifying this important incident in international rela- tionship. I say a " distinct service " because the gen- eral impression so far as this country is concerned was detrimental to British fair play. Your graphic statement of this affair, in which you took so important a part, furnishes an additional evi- [vii] dence of the Kaiser's unconscionable methods and of the German kultur of fraud and perversion. I hope that these articles will be further distributed in book form, not only in this country but in Great Britain, Sincerely yours, Oscar S. Straus. New York City, Oct. ii, 1918. Dear Mr. Hammond: — I am glad that you are giving to the public " The True Story of the Jameson Raid." It was one of the most dramatic incidents in history, and its consequences have been of such far-reaching importance that the world will be eager to know the facts. Sincerely yours, E. M. House. [ viii ] The Truth About the Jameson Raid By JOHN HAYS HAMMOND AS RELATED TO ALLEYNE IRELAND The amazing revelations of German in- trigue which within the past few months have come from points as far apart as Buenos Aires and Constantinople, as Petro- grad and Tokyo, have stirred in my mem- ory the recollection of a certain telegram signed by the same William, King of Prussia and German Emperor, whose im- pudent and mendacious emissaries have set the mark of indelible infamy on the brow of their Imperial accomplice. " From Wilhelm, Imperator, Rex, Ber- lin: to President Kruger, Pretoria, South African Republic," so ran the address, and thus the message: I tender you my sincere congratulations that without appealing to the help of friendly Powers you and your people have been success- [I] THE TRUTH ABOUT ful in opposing with your own forces the armed bands that have broken into your country to disturb the peace, in restoring order, and in maintaining the independence of your country against attacks from without. Like many of the German documents which have recently come to light, this message is clothed in language which im- parts to it a flavor of innocence and of sympathy. It is not until the surrounding circumstances are carefully examined that the telegram can be assigned its proper place in the dark record of German diplo- macy. Ame rican citizens played a prominerit part in the ev ents-referred taiiilhe, Kais£^'s tele gram, and the account of an eye-witness may prove of more than passing interest at this time. The story carries the reader to South Africa, where, in the heart of a pastoral country, nature has buried thou- sands of feet below the sunburnt plain the world's greatest store of gold. I may begin my narrative with a meeting held by five hundred Americans in Johan- nesburg, the mining city of the Transvaal, in December, 1895. What we had met to decide was whether or not we should give [2] THE JAMESON RAID our support to a Revolution which was then brewing against the Boer oligarchy. I was a little late in getting there and, when I entered, the meeting was in dis- order. Some of President Kruger's spies had managed to gain admittance, and the disturbance they made was so great that the Chairman, Captain Mein — an American and manager of the celebrated Robinson mine — was about to announce an adjourn- ment. I walked rapidly up the aisle, mounted the platform, and secured a hear- ing. I_to Id jhe_ row^j^LjhaM^ any^rnare trouhlg T 'd have them throw n out. Then I explained the exact situation which confronted us. Our grievances were so well known that there was no need for me to enlarge upon them ; all I had to do was to take the sense of those present — and every class of Amer- ican was represented — on the single ques- tion whether the point had not been reached to which the signers of the Declaration of Independence referred when they said: ... all experience hath shewn, that man- kind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accus- tomed. But, when a long train of abuses and [3] THE TRUTH ABOUT usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Ob- ject evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. Nothing is to be found in the Declara- tion of Independence limiting this prin- ciple by latitude, by longitude, or by cir- cumstance: it was a clean-cut hereditary issue, to be faced by us Americans then and there. The efforts o f Pre^ id^nt Kni gpr's sp rrpt agentsTaniong'whom th ere were many Ger - mansTTTad been directe d foi_ a long time t o he ading off theRevoluti on by sowing di s- S^ens jon in t b^ r^pks of the, mining mm- munity, and there was some danger that t hese att em pts might _su ££££dw The in- genious plan was followed of telling the American and other non-British immi- grants that the whole affair was nothing but an English plot to induce us to spend our money and to shed our blood in order that the country should be brought under the British flag. For the Americans the whole thing hung on the question of the flag; and I knew very well that there was but one way to secure [4] THE JAMESON RAID American support for the Revolution and at the same time to establish our action as a genuine internal revolt having no ob- ject ulterior to that of destroying the nar- row Boer oligarchy, then at the height of its malign and corrupt power, and of setting up in its place a truly representative de- mocracy on the American model. So I made it clear that if the worst came to the worst and we were driven to resort to violence, it was under the Boer flag that we would fight, and that we should have at least the sympathy of many progressive young Boers who were as disgusted as we were with the infamous condition into which the country had been brought by Paul Kruger and his Dutch and German satellites, and had declared that they would not bear arms against the Johannesburgers if the city were attacked. I concluded my speech by saying, " I will shoot jijiy man who hoists any flag but the Bo^r^^^," an announcement which was vigorously applauded. Out of more than five hundred Americans present all but five voted to take up-ai^ms--agaiasljCruger ; and immediately on the adjournment of the meeting we organized the George Wash- [5] THE TRUTH ABOUT ington Corps and pledged ourselves to the Revolutionary caused What the Revolution was about, how it failed, how the leaders, including myself, were sentenced to death, how the death- penalty was commutedfjrowour point of -jyiew was vindj£ate4.by the^oer Wa rand -i)y Englandijneasures aTter the^ country came under the BritisKTlag is what I pur- pose to tell in the following pages. When news of the Jameson Raid ap- peared in thousands of papers in all parts of the world on Tuesday, December 31, 1895, the general impression was created that a swashbuckling Englishman had at- tempted to overthrow the Government of the South African Republic in order to add its territory to the British Empire. It was not unnatural that this view of the situation should have aroused a widespread feeling of indignation, and that an almost unani- mous expression of sympathy with the Boers should have marked the press com- ment in the United States and on the Con- tinent of Europe. The outbreak of the South African War four years later revived in the public mem- ory the forgotten incident of the Raid, [6] THE JAMESON RAID furnished prejudice or ignorance with fresh material for an anti-British propa- ganda, gave to pro-Boer sentiment a new and vigorous lease of life, and confirmed in their opinion those who had seen in the Jameson Raid nothing but a brutal act of aggressive imperialism. Nothing could be more grotesque than the effort which was made to interpret the Johannesburg reform movement — of which the Jameson Raid was no more than a deplorable incident — as an expression of England's imperial policy. It was not the enlightened imperialism of "England but the benighted -provInHilismZSLZKruger I whic h created in South Africa that pro- fguad— xiis£antent, thaj J)]tter senss. _ oi mZ jj ustice _which drove jhe^jpopulation of I Johannesburg to s eek th rougJL-the -agency ( The idea that "capitalist" and "rascal" are interchangeable terms is one originally advanced by the anarchists, later taken by the I. W. W., and since 1912 sedulously employed by many blatant politicians in the United States. The question addressed to capitalists seeking protection from the American Government for their legitimate business interests in Mexico has been: "What are you doing down^ there? N o one asked you T(T go there ; and if you don't like'it, wIiy~~don't you get out? YoiT^re Qnlydown there to ma^ejiion^y_anyhowiIl.^ The same question was asked the capital- ists who provided the money which raised the Transvaal from the position of a bank- rupt State, dependent upon cattle-grazing and primitive agriculture, to that of a wealthy country entering with every pros- pect of success upon a career of modern development. Leaving on one side the broad issue between those who describe as honest and praiseworthy and those who stigmatize as dishonest and contemptible the employ- ment of capital to make the world's re- sources available for the world's use, the case of the Transvaal is peculiar in this, [10] THE JAMESON RAID that President Kruger issued a formal, public invitation to English capitalists, in which he urged them to come to his country j/^^ ^ /^ and invest their money in its development, [^ promising them in return the protection of X\^^\ On the other side was a small minority, headed by General Joubert. The attitude of this minority was faithfully represented in a speech made before the Upper Cham- ber of the Transvaal Legislature in August, 1895, by a Mr. Jeppe, a Boer. The oc- casion was the presentation of a Petition signed by 35,483 Uitlanders (the name given by the Boers to the immigrant population) praying that political repre- sentation might be granted to them. In the course of his speech Mr. Jeppe said: This petition has been, practically, signed by the entire population of the Rand. It con- tains the name of the millionaire capitalLst^pn tbe„5anie_page~as that oFthe miner, that of the owner of iiajf a district next to that o^f a clerk. _n^mbraces also all nationalities. And it bears, too, the signatures of sorrie who have been born in this country, who know no other father- land than this Republic, but^jadiom the law re- I gards as^ strangers . Th en, too, are th^. n e w- cornfiJis. They have settled for good. They have built Johannesburg, one of the wonders of the age. They own half the soil, thexpay at^i£ast__thjree-q[uarters of the taxes. Nor are they personswho belong to a subservient race. [16] THE JAMESON ' \ID They come from countries where they freely exercised political rights, which can never be long denied to free-born men. Da re_jBZ£_ refer them to the present l aw, •] I i which first expects them to wait for fourteen jii^ i_ ' yeart), and evei ithen pledges itself t6~nothmg? )^i&c^J^ Jt is a law whicli denies all rights even to their ch ildren born in this country. What will b e- come oFus or our children _mijiie ^day when w e "sBaHiAid o iir-s eTves m a~min QritY_ of perhap ^s o ne in twenty, without a s jngjp friVnd amnngQt- the other nineteen, among those who will then tell us they wished to be brothers, but we by our own act made them strangers in the Re- public, Old as the world is, has any attempt like ours ever succeeded for long? The foregoing statement by a Boer mem- ber of the Boer Legislature presents only the political side of the Uitlander case, and it must be supplemented by a recital of the grievances out of which the political agitation arose. I-;t--is— essenti a_i_that the read^£_s_houliLjinderstand that the Reform jno_Yeme nt in the T ra nsvaal vya s the di reef outcome of the convic tion that so lo ng jis^ th e yyhol e^j oTilicarand^ adniijii strati ue-Jiiar chinery of theco untry vs^as contr olled by the Ropr<; nci remedy "wo uld be found for t he abu&es_irom whichwe_suffered_^ I am positive that if Kruger had been [17] ^ i^ THE TRUTH ABOUT content to give Johannesburg decent gov- s^ernment the demand for poHtical rights \^ ^\j would have been postponed for many years ^"^^ and, indeed, might never have been madeV (^ ^ '>J^Nor^waj_jt_a__^uestiQn of a number m ^ i ^ jBrTtishers usirig^_th£^g Tievances as an exc use Jeans on thejpo t, v\rho"aF notimecQuM^^ T^H mT irh ^ym££fhjr~wrFK sucE aT^pTO- g ramme, ^ndwho^ , oiTaccount oTt heTecent trouble between England and the United States over the Venezuelan boundary, were strongly averse to giving the Reform move- ment an exclusively English complexion. Our grievances mayjhus be summarized ; and^ey~rnust~beinterpreted in the light of the fact that the Uitlanders had pur- chased from the Boers more than one-half of the land of the T ransvaal, _ that_they owned more than nine-tenths of__the^rop- ertyTlHaFlhey paid^^^ Qg^SanTnine^tgnths of alj_ the taxes raise din thc_country^ and that__iii_ _spite o f the squandering^ its r evenues the Transva al Gove rnment had accumulated in its Treasury more than six millions of dollars. ^Ve suffered from a hi^h__d£ath-rate THE JAMESON RAID and from much sickness th rough thelack j) f a sewage sy stem and of a clean watej supply. 2. Out of $310,000 allotted in Johannes- burg for ed ucation lessj han $4.000 jyasap- jTJjed to the. TTiflanrlpr rhildrpn^ nUhnngh th ey outnumbered the Boer children in the t own, and their parents supplieH ±he money w hich hnj lf the schools an( them. The actual figures worked out at about fifty cents a head for our children and $40 a head for the Boer children; and -^ at that, our children were not allowed to M^Nk^^- use or study English in the schools. This ^^,.^r / caused the deepest resentment, for our chil- ^ >r dren heard no language but Dutch in the ^ schools, and they were being gradually es- tranged from the ideals which have been perpetuated by English speech. 3. Ajjhmighwg_hajJ:HiiJ4:-4 h e c i ty and lo und pra^icall yall th e money to run it, we had no voi ce whatever in its~"govern- menf, were dom inafpH hy__a_j-nrnijTt_ a n H violent B oer police^ and were denied a free press and the right of public meeting. 4. The mining industry was harass ed^by Government monopoli es which forced up the coslot li vmg~and ofworking the min es, [19] THE TRUTH ABOUT and which were farmed out with the object olMtingTEF^pockets^ot KrugerTIavo rites. Of these rnonopoTies~Me~oTTh^lSosrl)'ur- densome was that which compelled us to purchase our dynamite from a single privi- leged firm, which paid a royalty to certain members of the Transvaal Government. Not only were we forced to pay about three million dollars a year tribute in the form of excess profits to the holder of the monopoly, but the quality of the dynamite was so poor that fatal accidents were of common occurrence. 5. Xte-X^lroad^olj^y_oiJlLe-J^asYaaI was s o_ framed a ^_J o ena b le the raj lro ad monopoly to charge ext ortionale—ixeigbt rates. I Johannesburg was connected with the Cape Colony-Free State railroad, over which most of our supplies came, by a line fifty miles long under the control of the Netherlands South Africa Railway Com- pany, whose shareholders were entirely German, Dutch, and Boer. So high was the freight schedule on this line that it was cheaper for us to unload our consignments at railhead of the Cape Line, re-load them into ox-wagons, and so take them to Johan- nesburg across the drifts, or fords, by which [20] THE JAMESON RAID alone the Vaal River could be crossed. In order to deprive us of this means of getting ourselves out of the clutches of his rail- road monopoly, Kruger closed the drifts on October i, 1895. But in doing this he over-reached himself. His action was in clear defiance of his treaty obligations to England; and after consultation with the Government of Cape Colony (which pledged itself to support England with men and money if it became necessary to enforce her treaty rights) the British Gov- ernment informed Pretoria that the drifts must be reopened and must remain open. In response to this ultimatum Kruger rescinded his order. 6. In the interest of the liquor monopoly ^^ the Boer Government allowed an unlimited amount of cheap and fiery spirits to be sold to the Kaffirs. There was, in consequence, \ a great deal of drunkenness among our ^^ laborers; and as the liquor dealers were Jjh^.A • allowed to sell this wretched stufif at the \y Ar mouth of the mines to men about to go Vf>w^ down the shafts, there was much loss of f A life and of property from this cause. t^* 7. President Kruger and his Executive Council exerted a constant pressure upon [21] THE TRUTH ABOUT the judges of the Transvaal Supreme Court, the only barrier which stood between the Johannesburgers and the rule of an un- bridled despotism. In 1897 the condition became so scandalous that the Boer judges themselves closed the court, declaring that it was impossible to administer justice under the coercion to which they were subjected by the executive. 8. The Boers asserted the right to draft for service in their wars against the natives those very Americans to whom they denied the right of citizenship. It was through a little ruse on my part that this right to con- script Americans was never enforced. I called a meeting one night to which I in- vited the managers and other American officials of the mines under my manage- ment. The meeting was supposed to be a secret one, but we took care to have present an American whom we knew to be a paid spy of the Boer Government^.;^_^We passed a unanimous resolution that we would resist all efforts of the Boers to send us to the front to fight the Kaffirs, and that if, in face of our protests, we were drafted, our first shots would be fired at the Boer officers. This resolution was duly reported by the [22] THE JAMESON RAID contemptible American spy, and no effort was ever made to conscript us. /In this we were more fortunate than the British, of whom a number were forced into the Boer Army^ To this brief survey of our grievances I must add a few words about a man whose cultivated mind and legal talents were em- ployed by Kruger to furnish the finesse / which was entirely foreign to his own char- / acter. The agreeable but sinister person-V ality of Dr. Leyds, the Transvaal State/X Attorney, was almost as well known as -^ that of his Boer master. I mention him here because it was a matter of common knowledge that he was the go-between of Kruger and the Kaiser. On January 27, 1895, Kruger, speaking at a banquet in honor of the Kaiser's birthday, said: "I shall ever promote the interests of Ger- many . . . the time has come to knit ties of the closest friendship between Germany and the South African Republic." Shortly after this Dr. Leyds went to Berlin — to have his throat examined! — and he was in Berlin when the Kaiser sent the telegram of which I have already spoken. [23] ^ THE TRUTH ABOUT That part of the Kaiser-Kruger plot which related to keeping the Uitlanders in a state of simmering revolt, Dr. Leyds handled with skill and success. The other part, Germany's proposal to send troops to the Transvaal at the time of the Jameson Raid, went to pieces when England mobil- ized her flying squadron after the pub- lication of the Kaiser-Kruger telegram. o Kruger never forgave the Kaiser for this back-down. He confided to a friend the ^ opinion that there was no profit in dealing ^^with a monarch who allowed his foreign policy to be dictated by his grandmother. During 1895 general conditions in the Transvaal went from bad to worse. The Boers became ever more arbitrary and over- bearing; and their intentions showed up very clearly when they began to construct forts dominating the city of Johannesburg. One deputation after another was sent to Kruger to state our grievances, but with- out effect. Finally he told one deputation that he would make no promises of any kind, and he brought the interview to a close by saying: "If you want your griev- ances redressed, why don't you get guns and fight for what you call your rights?" [24] THE JAMESON RAID We took him at his word. This brings me to the story of the Jame- son Raid, an episode about which there has always been much confusion in the public mind. The reason why the full facts were not brought to light by the two official investigations of the circumstances — one held in Cape Town and the other in Lon- don — was that one of the conditions on which the four leaders of the Johannesburg end of the affair, and others arrested at that time, had their death sentences commuted, was a solemn pledge to the Boer Govern ment that for three years they would re- main silent upon all questions relating to Transvaal politics. Before this pledge had expired, all interest in the Raid had been swamped by the outbreak of the South African War, and in the meantime the Boers had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars (British and American dollars) in a world-wide propaganda of misrepre- sentation. As soon as it became clear that an internal Revolution offered the only way out of our difficulties, a secret Committee was formed for the purpose of securing arms and of working out the details of our plan. This [25] THE TRUTH ABOUT Committee consisted of Colonel Frank Rhodes — a brother of Cecil Rhodes, and one of the noblest men I have ever met — Lionel Phillips, Percy FitzPatrick, Wools-Sampson, George Farrar, and my- self. Our general scheme was to get some thousands of guns into Johannesburg, and then, on some dark night, to take Pretoria, the Boer Capital about thirty-five miles north of Johannesburg, seize the arsenal, carry Kruger off with us, and to negotiate at leisure for the redress of our grievances and for those constitutional changes which would make the Transvaal a Republic based upon a reasonable franchise law ap- plicable to all its white inhabitants. Among the tasks allotted to me was to arrange for the importation of arms, for the taking of Pretoria and the capture of Kruger. In view of what actually happened, this sounds like a very wild undertaking; but I am satisfied that if it had not been for the premature movement of Dr. Jameson's force (which I will describe later) we would have had a successful and bloodless Revolution, and that the Union of South Africa would have been formed without [26] THE JAMESON RAID the fighting of the Boer War and without the Transvaal and the Orange Free State passing under the British flag. Everything was in our favor. The Uit- landers outnumbered the Boers, the pro- ject of overawing Johannesburg by the construction of modern forts commanding the town was only in its initial stages, we had the sympathy of a considerable propor- tion of the younger burghers, and the min- ing capitalists who had hitherto frowned upon every suggestion of revolt had come round to our point of view and were ready to finance the Revolution. Two things were considered absolutely necessary for the carrying out of our aims. One was the importation of arms, the other was some arrangement which would insure the safety of our women and children if anything went wrong and there was a prospect of heavy fighting in Johannesburg. The first of these matters was easy to arrange but slow in execution, for the guns had to be smuggled in a few at a time; the second required the greatest care and pre- sented the greatest difhculties. Our arms and ammunition were smug- gled in by a small group of Americans, of [27] THE TRUTH ABOUT whom the most active were Mr, Gardner Williams, manager of the famous De Beers diamond mines at Kimberley; Mr. La- bram, a mining engineer of a deservedly high reputation, and myself. They were imported from Europe, consigned to Kim- berley, and were then sent by rail to Johan- nesburg concealed in oil tanks or in coal trucks. After much anxious thought and many long discussions, a plan was arranged be- tween Cecil Rhodes, Dr. Jameson (ad- ministrator of the Chartered Company's territories bordering the Transvaal on the west), and the members of the secret com- mittee, whose names I have given above. Rhodes, as virtual dictator of the Char- tered Company, was to order Jameson to concentrate on the border a force of 1,500 mounted men, fully equipped, ready to ride into Johannesburg if and when called upon. A letter was given to Jameson by the reform leaders, explaining the conditions under which the revolutionary plot had origi- nated. It contained the following sentence: " It is under these circumstances that we feel constrained to call upon you to come to our aid, should a disturbance arise here." [28] THE JAMESON RAID This letter was left undated, and it was agreed that it was to be used only for the purpose of justifying Jameson in the eyes of his directors and of the British author- ities, if he should actually enter the Trans- vaal, and that he should on no account cross the border unless and until he had received from me (as representing Rhodes on the one hand, and the Johannesburg Committee on the other) a specific request to come in. Of all the scenes of that period none is more clearly imprinted on my memory than that of Jameson shaking hands with me in the presence of Rhodes as a solemn pledge that he would not cross the border until I gave him the signal. The exaction of this promise was based on two considerations: First, that the ap- peal to Jameson should come from a popu- lation already in a state of active Revolu- tion; second, that as we on the spot could alone judge of the exact moment best suited for the rising, so we alone could determine the need for Jameson's entry and the hour when it should occur. Several tentative dates were fixed for the revolt, but these had in turn to be postponed on account of the slowness with which our arms were [29] i THE TRUTH ABOUT being smuggled in. About the middle of December, 1895, messages began to arrive from Jameson showing that the delay was getting on his nerves, and by Christmas Day we had become so alarmed by the possi- bility that Jameson might get out of hand that we sent two men, by different routes, each of whom delivered to him our em- phatic protest against any unauthorized move by him ; and he was warned both from Cape Town and from Johannesburg that if he disregarded his instructions we should all be involved in disaster. In the meantime, the Boers began to suspect that something was on foot. On December 28 President Kruger received a deputation of Americans. Among them was Mr. Hennen Jennings, the distin- guished mining engineer, who, though he was as anxious as the rest of us to secure reforms, was not convinced that peaceful means had been exhausted. Kruger asked the deputation: *' If a crisis should occur, on which side shall I find the Americans?" " On the side of liberty and good govern- ment," was the answer. "You are all alike," shouted Kruger, [30] THE JAMESON RAID "tarred with the same brush; you are British in your hearts." On Monday, December 30, I was sitting in my office in the Goldfields Building, the headquarters of the Reform Committee, when I received a visit from one of Kru- ger's intimate associates, a man named Sammy Marks, for some of whose enter- prises I was consulting engineer. He was nervous and excited, and began immedi- ately to discuss the rumors abroad. After we had talked for some time on the general situation, the door opened and a clerk came in and handed me a slip of paper. On it was written, "Jameson has crossed the border." I was thunderstruck. I can only be thankful that Sammy Marks was too much occupied with his own thoughts to notice the effect of the shock. It was clear to me that what he wanted was to find out how far we had gone in arming ourselves. I knew that at that time we had less than fifteen hundred rifles and practically no artillery; but I knew also that if this fact got to Kruger's ears, after he had heard of Jameson^ incursion, Johannesburg would be install tly attacked and that our whole' ^' [31] THE TRUTH ABOUT plan would go to pieces. My conversation with Sammy Marks ran in this fashion: "Well, Hammond, it looks as though we were going to have bloodshed." "I shouldn't be surprised." "They say you've got in 30,000 rifles." " I don't know how many we 've got, but I don't think it's as many as that." "And how^ about artillery? Is it true you've got thirty guns?" "Oh, no! That's an exaggeration, I'm sure." In afew minutes Marks left. I had him trailed, and, as I had foreseen, he went straight ofif by special train to Kruger. I learned later that he had told the President that w.e_J iad at least 30,000 rifles and 30 guns! ^ - — " '"' By~the time Marks was on his way to Pretoria the news of Jameson's Raid had spread among the Johannesburg leaders. -The situation called for instant action. The secret committee was expanded into a larger body, known as the Reform Com- mittee, which within a few hours included in its membership about seventy-five of the most prominent men on the Rand. The committee published in the Johannesburg [32] THE JAMESON RAID Star of Tuesday, December 31, the follow- ing notice: Notice is hereby given that this committee adheres to the National Union Manifesto/ and reiterates its desire to maintain the inde- pendence of the Republic. The fact that rumors are in course of circulation to the effect that a force [Jameson's] has crossed the Bechuanaland border renders it necessary to tak e active steps for the defence of Johannes- ^ ^rg a nd the preservatTon of" order. The conT- mittee' eaFnestly desires that the inhabitants r)»_s/x*i^>-# should refrain from taking any action which . ' Z' can be considered as an overt act of hostility *^»'^*<>' against the Government. ^^c-fs. Our hand had been forced, and our position was critical in the extreme. We had arms for perhaps 1,500 men, but am- munition sufficient only for a few hours' fighting. In face of a Boer attack we should have been helpless. Many of the^ mines had closed down, and we had to fea^ "^rious trouble from the thousands of na- "tiyes thus suddenly rendered idle.^ The Government police having left the town in a body, our first task was to organize our own police, so that there should be no dis- ^ Issued on December 26. It recapitulated our grievances and stated what we wanted. The first demand was for the es- tabhshment of the Republic as a true Republic, under a Consti- tution to be framed by representatives of the whole people. [33] THE TRUTH ABOUT order. Everyone worked with a will, and by noon on the last day of 1895 we had set on foot all the measures within our power to relieve the situation. In order to emphasize the true quality of our position, I hoisted a Boer flag over the Goldfields Building, where all the meet- ings of the committee were held; and we ^all, then and there, swore allegiance to it" Events now moved with great rapidity. On the evening of December 31, two dele- gates from the Boer Government (the so- called Olive Branch Delegation) reached Johannesburg. The first efifort of the dele- gation was to treat with us as individuals. - We were, however, well aware of the dan- ger involved in the success of such tactics. It^was not in our capacity as individuals that we were assembled, but as a body representative of the Johannesburg people. We insisted on this point, and it was at last yielded by the delegation. /2^v^ r A long conference with the Reform Com- V - ,/ mittee followed. The Boer delegates stated ^ [!yi I that the Government was prepared to grant Ja^ Jf us practically every demand of the Nat- v#» |»aI ional Union Manifesto; but, on being '^0 ^^ pressed for details, they admitted that ^r [34] A THE JAMESON RAID Kruger was unaltera^iy opposed to allow- -sU ing either Roman Catholics or Jews te/ V become voters in the Transvaal. ^ It was arranged that a deputation of the Reform Committee should go to Pretoria to meet a Government Commission. This plan marked the end of the attempt by the Pretoria authorities to deal with us as in- dividuals, and thus to avoid recognizing the committee as a pr ovision al government, which, in point of fact, it was. "^"^ ' On the evening of December 31, Sir ^ Hercules Robinson — British High Com- • missioner for South Africa, whose sugges- tion that he should go to Pretoria as mediator had been accepted by Kruger and by the Reform Committee — issued a Proclamation of which the burden was^ that Jameson was ^immediately to retire from the Transvaal, and that all British subjects were to refrain from giving him"" any countenance or aid in his armed viola- tion of a friendly State. This Proclamation was,.j£legraplied both to Pretoria and fo Johannesburg, and copies of it were sent by mounted men to Jameson in the field. A personal friend of mine, a fellow mem- ber of the Reform Committee, Mr. Lace, [35] ■f THE TRUTH ABOUT went out in company with the man bearing the Proclamation, He has told me that when he informed Jameson of the lack of arms in Johannesburg, Jameson said, "That's all right; I don't need any help from Johannesburg/' This conversation was confirmed to me by Jameson the fol- lowing year in London. -On January 4, 1896, Sir Hercules Rob- inson reached Pretoria and at once began those negotiations in which, as it seemed to us^ he was mo re anxious to mollify the Boers tha n to see justice done to the Uit- landerS; In the meantime, on January 2, Jameson's troopers had been surrounded by Boer forces under Commandant Cronje, and had surrendered. The efifect of this on the action of the Johannesburgers can be under- stood only if the reader bears constantly in mind that during the whole of the ne- gotiations between the High Commissioner, the Boer Government, and the Reform Committee the fact was concealed from us that under the terms of surrender the life of Jameson and of each meinber of his force was guaranteed. That this concealment was extended also to the High Commis- [36] THE JAMESON RAID sioner is proved by the following telegram from the High Commissioner, read to us by Sir Jacobus de Wet, the British Diplo- matic Agent in Pretoria: It is urgent that you should inform the people of Johannesburg that I consider that if they lay down their arms they will be acting loyally and honorably, and that if they do not comply with my request they will forfeit all claim to sympathy from Her Majesty's Gov- ernment and from British subjects throughout the world, as the lives of Jameson and the prisoners are now practically in their hands. In face of such an appeal there was nothing for us to do but to accept the High Commissioner's advice. We therefore gave up our arms and waited anxiously to see what steps Sir Hercules would take to meet a situation which he thus described in a telegram to Mr. Joseph Chamberlain on January 7: ... I have just received a message from the Reform Committee resolving to comply with demand of South African Republic to lay down their arms; the people placing themselves and their interests unreservedly in my hands in fullest confidence that I will see justice done them. . . . Our confidence was certainly misplaced. [37] 402896 \* J^ THE TRUTH ABOUT On January 8 he telegraphed to Mr. Cham- berlain: "I will confer with Kruger as to redressing the grievances of the residents of Johannesburg"; and later the same day: *' I intend to insist on the fulfilment of promises as regards prisoners and consider- ation of grievances." On January 14 he left Pretoria for Cape Town; and on the ' . -/\\ 1 6th, in reply to an urgent telegram from r ^ Mr. Chamberlain about the redress of the 'jT' Uitlander grievances, he wired, in part, ^j " the question of concessions to Uitlanders was never discussed between us" — i.e.^ between him and President Kruger. The Boers were very quick to perceive the indifTference of the High Commissioner and to draw their own conclusions from it. On January 8 and 9 sixty-four members of the Reform Committee, including myself, were arrested and taken to the Pretoria jail. On the 26th all were released on bail except Lionel Phillips, George Farrar, Colonel Frank Rhodes, Percy FitzPatrick, and my- self. Of the prisoners, twenty-three were Englishmen, sixteen South Africans, nine Scotchmen, six Americans, two Welshmen, two Germans, and one each from Ireland, Australia, Canada, Switzerland, Holland, and Turkey. [38] THE JAMESON RAID It would be absurd at the present time to enlarge upon the discomfort and ill- health we suffered through being confined in the heat of summer in an overcrowded and unclean prison hitherto used for Kaf- firs. I had a violent recurrence of the dysentery which I had contracted a few months earlier in the Zambesi country; but, through the indefatigable exertions of Mrs. Hammond, I was allowed to live under guard in a cottage at Pretoria; later, on fifty thousand dollars bail, to return to my home in Johannesburg, and, finally, my physical condition having grown steadily worse, to go to the lower altitude and cooler climate of Cape Town. Our trial was originally set for A£llL24; As the day drew near and my health showecl no signs of improvement, the anxiety of my wife, my friends, and my medical advisers showed itself in their united efforts to in- duce me to stay where I was, amid the com- forts of a seaside home. The American Secretary of State, the late Richard Olney, went so far as to cable the Boer Govern- ment on my behalf; but I felt that both on grounds of personal and of national honor I should be in place with the other pris- [39] THE TRUTH ABOUT oners to face whatever Fate had in store for us. An incident which greatly added to the fears of my friends was the action of a few irreconcilable Boers who declared their in- tention of lynching us before we got to court. For this purpose they took to Pre- toria a heavy wooden beam from which five Boers had been hanged by the British in 1816! This threat was reported to me by private telegrams from Boer friends of mine in Pretoria. The trial actually commenced on A pril 27. Sixty-four of us had been arrested and we were all present when the indictment was read, except one man, who was ill. Our position was a difficult one. A foreign judge had been imported to preside, a man who is reported to have boasted, before he even reached Pretoria, that he would make short work of us. The jury was, of course, made up entirely of Boers. Of our con- viction not one of us had the slightest doubt. We were all accused of High Treason, but there were several other counts of a less serious nature. It was very clear to every- body that of the sixty-three prisoners a large number had been followers rather than [40] THE JAMESON RAID leaders. Our first concern was, therefore, to arrange, if it should prove possible, that only those of us who had been generally- recognized as the heads of the revolt should incur the risk of the extreme penalty. After a good deal of private discussion between our counsel and the State Attorney, it was agreed that four of us would plead guilty to High Treason and that the other pris- oners would be allowed to plead guilty to the minor charges. There was an under- standing also that, in view of the pleas, the State Attorney would not urge the Court to inflict exemplary punishment. What the Boers were to gain as a quid pro quo was* that all their political dirty linen would not/^ be washed at a long trial which would be reported by every important paper in the world. The trial lasted only a few hours, and almost till the last moment everything went as well as we could have expected. Dr. Coster, a Hollander, the State Attorney, made his formal address, asking simply that we should be punished according to law. Mr. Wessels, of our counsel, made an elo- quent plea in our defense, and took his seat. We all thought that the judge would then [41] THE TRUTH ABOUT sum up the case for the jury; but, to our consternation, the State Attorney sprang to ' •'5nr<^ his feet and claimed the right to address the Court. He then launched into a most violent attack upon us, and demanded that in passing sentence the Court should set aside the comparatively mild Statute Law of the Transvaal and should apply the old Roman-Dutch Law, under which death is the only penalty provided for High Trea- son. The Court, after hearing this im- passioned appeal, adjourned until the fol- lowing day. I may borrow from an account written by one of the prisoners, Sir Percy FitzPatrick, the description of the scene in court when the sentences were imposed : The usual question as to whether there were any reasons why sentence of death should not be passed upon them having been put and the usual reply in the negative having been re- ceived, in the midst of silence that was only disturbed by the breaking down of persons in various parts of the hall — officials, burghers, and the general public — sentence of death was passed, first on Mr. Lionel Phillips, next on Colonel Rhodes, then on Mr. George Farrar, and lastly on Mr. Hammond. The bearing of the four men won for them uni- [42] THE JAMESON RAID versal sympathy and approval, especially un- der the conditions immediately following the death sentence, when a most painful scene took place in Court. Evidences of feeling came from all parts of the room and from all classes of people : from those who conducted the de- fence and from the Boers who were to have constituted the jury. The interpreter translat- ing the sentence broke down. Many of the minor officials lost control of themselves, and feelings were further strained by the incident of one man falling insensible. The other prisoners were sentenced to two years' imprisonment, to a fine of ten thousand dollars each, in default of pay- ment to spend an additional year in jail, and to be banished from the State for three years. Throughout South Africa, indeed through- out the world, the death sentences were re- garded as excessively severe in view of all the circumstances. Petitions, bearing thou- sands of signatures, were addressed to Kruger from Cape Colony, Natal, and the Orange Free State, while a deputation com- posed of more than two hundred mayors of South African towns set out for Pretoria for the purpose of appealing in person to the President of the South African Re- public. [43] THE TRUTH ABOUT The first consequence of this agitation was that on May 30 all the prisoners who had not been sentenced to death were of- fered their liberty if they would sign an appeal for clemency, and pay $10,000 each, an offer which was accepted, except by Mr. Wools-Sampson and Mr. Davies, who re- fused to sign any appeal. As soon as this matter was out of the way, the Transvaal authorities took up the question of what should be done with the four leaders. The first offer made to us was that we should each pay a fine of $250,000 and write letters to President Kruger thanking him for his magnanimity. These terms we absolutely declined to consider, although the scaffold for our execution had been erected, and all other preparations made with much ostentation. After a good deal of bargaining we were released on June 1 1 on payment of $125,000 each (Kruger having to go without his certificate of magnanimity) and on our undertaking to keep out of Transvaal politics for fifteen years. Colonel Frank Rhodes refused to make this pledge and accepted instead a sentence of fifteen years' banishment. [44] THE JAMESON RAID So ended the revolt, so far as we Johan- nesburgers were concerned. Time has amply vindicated our cause. In 1897 the grievances which had led to the Revolution were still unredressed, and, in consequence, a general financial collapse of the Transvaal was in sight. The Gov- ernment of the South African Republic, alarmed at the prospect of the mines shut- ting down and the moneyed element in the country taking its departure, appointed a Commission of Boer officials to inquire into the state of affairs. Its report, after declar-, ing that " the mining industry must be held as the financial basis, support, and mainstay! of the State," upheld on almost every point the complaints we had made in our repeated petitions; and suggested remedies. But the Transvaal Legislature rejected these recom- mendations, and Kruger stigmatized the Chairman of the Commission, Mr. Schalk Burger, a member of the Transvaal Execu- tive Council, as a traitor for having signed the report. After two years of protracted negotia- tions with the British Government on the subject of the grievances, Kruger issued an ultimatum to England, and the Boer War [45] THE TRUTH ABOUT followed. If final proof is sought of the justice of the Uitlanders' cause, it is to be found in the fact that after the Boers had been conquered and their territories brought under the British flag, England immediately granted to the Boers all the civil, political, and religious rights which, in the day of their power, the Boers had denied to British, American, and other nationals. The wisdom of such a policy of fair treatment and equal justice has been made manifest in the Great War, in which, fighting side by side with the British, the Irish, and the Americans, are to be found Boer generals and thousands of Boer volun- teers, whose only desire is to uphold the honor of that flag which so recently they had regarded as the emblem of tyranny. When the Boer War was drawing to a close and the British Government was working out the plan of a general settle- ment of South African affairs, I happened to be in London. A dinner was given me by my valued friend, the late Earl Grey, who afterwards became Governor-General of Canada. Among the other guests were many of the British Colonial statesmen then gathered in London for the Colonial Con- [46] THE JAMESON RAID ference. In responding to the toast of my health I spoke of the South African situa- tion, and urged the view that only by gen- erous treatment of the vanquished Boers could a South African Commonwealth arise out of the ashes of the conflict. From the warmth with which this opinion was re- ceived, and from later conversations with a number of those present, I am encouraged to believe that my voice was not without its share of influence in determining that mag- nanimous policy which has since welded South Africa into a united Empire. As I look back after twenty years upon the events I have described, my conscience justifies the part I played in them. Given the same conditions, I would again act as I then acted, and should again be sustained by the firm conviction that I was striving to the best of my ability to maintain and to extend those imperishable principles of fair-play which are in a peculiar sense the heritage of the British Empire and of the United States. The moral quality of an action cannot, of course, be made to depend upon the efifects which flow from it; but it is pre- cisely from such effects that we properly [47] THE TRUTH ABOUT estimate the wisdom or folly of a political decision. It is not, therefore, without a good deal of satisfaction that I observe how events have justified the views of the Johannesburg Committee and the decision of the British Government, in 1899, to join issue with President Kruger on the broad question of justice and fair treatment for the whole population of the Transvaal. The consequences of that view and of that decision were the Boer War and the final establishment of the Union of South Africa as a democratic State within the British Empire. The debt which the world owes in this matter to the Johannesburg Reformers and to the British Government can be brought home to the reader by stating what would have happened if the Johannesburgers had remained supine under the yoke of Kruger- ism and England had remained deaf to the cry of her oppressed sons. Who can doubt that if the Boer War had not broken out in 1899, Germany would have arranged that it should break out in 1914? But reflect what a totally different affair this would have been. In the inter- [48] THE JAMESON RAID vening years Germany had built strategic roads in her South West African territory, as a military threat to the whole British position from Cape Town to the head waters of the Nile. Recent disclosures enable us to see the vast extent and the infamous nature of Germany's African ambitions. She was to build up an enormous legion of black sol- diers, an inexhaustible reservoir of cannon- fodder. With her strategic roads, with her disciplined host of native levies, with the aid of a well-armed, skillful, and courag- eous Boer army, Germany would have struck a blow in South Africa in 1914 which would have overwhelmed all pos- sible opposition on the part of the British South Africans and the pro-British Boers, and would have given her that world- victory which she so nearly secured by the suddenness of her attack upon Belgium and France. Her treasury would have been replen- ished with the gold of South Africa; naval bases at Durban and Cape Town would have placed her submarines within easy striking distance of every sea route south of the equator; the resources of the South [49] THE JAMESON RAID American Continent would no longer have been at the disposal of her enemies; the participation of India and Australia in the war would have been seriously hampered. It is not too much to say, then, that the Boer War, by removing the possibility of a formidable German military and naval base in what is now the Union of South Africa, contributed in no small measure to the approaching German defeat which is to rescue the world from a Teuton over- lordship. [50] UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY Los Angeles This booKU DUE on the lasnfl^bMtaiaQfdJbelow. 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