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'The spot we had selected to stop in until the arrival of Forbes was a clump of heavy bush not far from the King's spoor and yet so far from the Kaffir camps that they could not hear us if we kept quiet. We dismounted, and on counting it was found that three of the men were missing. They were Hofmeyer, Bradburn and Colquhoun.
All through this business the Boers have more or less danced in obedience to strings pulled at Cape Town, and it is now said that one of the chief wire-pullers, Mr. Hofmeyer, is to be asked to become President of the Republic.
Indeed, had he been an advocate of their cause instead of a member of the Commission, he could not have espoused their side on every occasion with greater zeal. According to him they were always in the right, and in them he could find no guile. Mr. Hofmeyer and President Brand exercised a wise discretion from their own point of view, when they urged his appointment as Special Commissioner.
Hence the repeated hurried visits of the Bond leaders Jan Hofmeyer, Abraham Fisher, and others the frequent caucus meetings of the Executive in consultation with those delegates, the secret midnight sessions of the combined Volksraads and Executive, the prolonged telegraphic conferences between the two Presidents, and the final resulting word of "ready" which preceded the fatal war ultimatum.
Jan Hofmeyer, "onze Jan," that far-seeing, famous Cape politician, and Mr. Harold, M.P., left for Pretoria, and by the co-operation of President Steyn prevailed on President Kruger to submit those proposals to the British Government which the Colonial Secretary frankly admitted might form the basis of a peaceful settlement.
I don't see as that's anything to brag of or to carry brooms about. All the fife-and-drum corps are out, and the bands are all playing "Hiawatha" at once, but not together. Not all either. There's one band in front of Hofmeyer's playing "Oh, Happy Day! That Fixed my Choce." That's funny: to play a hymn-tune in front of a beer-saloon. Hofmeyer seems to think it's all right.
Hofmeyer, a coincidence that inclines one to the opinion that these friends of the Boers had some further reason for thus urging Sir Henry de Villiers' appointment as Commissioner beyond his apparent fitness for the post, of which his high reputation as a lawyer and in his private capacity was a sufficient guarantee.
Jan Hofmeyer had indeed been sent for from the Cape so as to assure that section of the Bond of Transvaal firmness, but he found no sign of flinching or of renouncing the common object laboured for so long and then so near fruition. The only difficulty was that British action had hastened the issue somewhat too fast.
On the one hand, they were the kinsmen of the Boers; on the other, they were British subjects, and were enjoying the blessings of those liberal institutions which we were anxious to see extended to the Transvaal. 'Only treat our folk as we treat yours! Our whole contention was compressed into that prayer. But nothing came of the mission, though a scheme endorsed by Mr. Hofmeyer and Mr.
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