of all evidence in our favour; and we can foresee, as the result
of this prejudice, nothing but the total ruin of the country.

We quit this Colony under the full assurance that the English
Government has nothing more to require of us, and will allow us
to govern ourselves without its interference in future.

We are now leaving the fruitful land of our birth, in which we
have suffered enormous losses and continual vexation, and are
about to enter a strange and dangerous territory; but we go with
a firm reliance on an all-seeing, just, and merciful God, whom we
shall always fear and humbly endeavour to obey.

In the name of all who leave this Colony with me.

P. RETIEF.

[Sidenote: The English in pursuit.]

We journeyed then with our fathers beyond the Orange River into the
unknown north, as free men and subjects of no sovereign upon earth. Then
began what the English Member of Parliament, Sir William Molesworth,
termed a strange sort of pursuit. The trekking Boer followed by the
British Colonial Office was indeed the strangest pursuit ever witnessed
on earth. [8] The British Parliament even passed a law in 1836 to impose
punishments beyond their jurisdiction up to the 25th degree south, and
when we trekked further north, Lord Grey threatened to extend this
unrighteous law to the Equator. It may be remarked that in this law it
was specially enacted that no sovereignty or overlordship was to be
considered as established thereby over the territory in question.