There seems to be no possible excuse for the repeated murders of coloured men by the Boers, as they had themselves from the beginning of the war used their Kaffirs for every purpose short of actually fighting.

The war had lost much of the good humour which marked its outset.

A fiercer feeling had been engendered on both sides by the long strain, but the execution of rebels by the British, though much to be deplored, is still recognised as one of the rights of a belligerent.
When one remembers the condonation upon the part of the British of the use of their own uniforms by the Boers, of the wholesale breaking of paroles, of the continual use of expansive bullets, of the abuse of the pass system and of the red cross, it is impossible to blame them for showing some severity in the stamping out of armed rebellion within their own Colony.

If stern measures were eventually adopted it was only after extreme leniency had been tried and failed.

The loss of five years' franchise as a penalty for firing upon their own flag is surely the most gentle correction which an Empire ever laid upon a rebellious people.
At the beginning of August the connected systematic work of French's columns began to tell.