plunder which has at all times characterised its dealings with our
people.




THE CAPE OF GOOD HOPE.


The cause for which we are about to take up arms is the same, though in
somewhat different form, as that for which so many of our forefathers
underwent the most painful experiences centuries ago, when they
abandoned house and fatherland to settle at the Cape of Good Hope, to
enjoy there that freedom of conscience which was denied them in the land
of their birth. In the beautiful valleys lying between the blue
mountains of the Cape of Good Hope they planted the seed-germ of
liberty, which sprang up and has since developed with such startling
rapidity into the giant tree of to-day--a tree which not only covers a
considerable area in this part of the world, but will yet, in God's good
time, we feel convinced, stretch out its leafy branches over the whole
of South Africa. In spite of the oppressive bonds of the East India
Company, the young settlement, containing the noblest blood of old
Europe as well as its most exalted aspirations, grew so powerfully that
in 1806, when the Colony passed into the hands of England, a strong
national sentiment and a spirit of liberty had already been developed.

[Sidenote: The Africander spirit of liberty]

As is forcibly expressed in an old document dating from the most
renowned period of our history, there grew out of the two stocks of