Sir Owen Lanyon had, as stated
before, sent a small body of soldiers thither to support the civil
authorities, and had also appointed Major Clarke, C.M.G., an officer
of noted coolness and ability, to act as Special Commissioner for the
district.
Major Clarke's first step was to try, in conjunction with Captain Raaf,
to raise a corps of volunteers, in which he totally failed. Those of the
townsfolk who were not Boers at heart had too many business relations
with the surrounding farmers, and perhaps too little faith in the
stability of English rule after Mr. Gladstone's utterances, to allow
them to indulge in patriotism. At the time of the outbreak, between
seventy and eighty thousand sterling was owing to firms in Potchefstroom
by neighbouring Boers, a sum amply sufficient to account for their
lukewarmness in the English cause. Subsequent events have shown that the
Potchefstroom shopkeepers were wise in their generation.
On the 15th December a large number of Boers came into the town and took
possession of the printing-office in order to print the proclamation
already alluded to.
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