In this struggle they were inevitably defeated.

It was easy to foresee that an armed peasantry could not permanently resist the combined forces of England and her colonies, and that the peasant armies generally could not bear heavy losses.

But yet--if all indications are not misleading--the blood shed by the Boer people will yield a free and prosperous future.

In spite of much weakness, the resistance was heroic; men like President Stein, Botha, and De Wett, with their gallant followers, performed many great military feats.

The whole nation combined and rose unanimously to fight for the freedom of which Byron sings: "For freedom's battle once begun, Bequeathed from bleeding sire to son, Though baffled oft, is ever won." Inestimable moral gains, which can never be lost in any later developments, have been won by this struggle.