One of his most notorious actions was the treatment which, by his orders, was inflicted on an old man who enjoyed the general esteem of both the English and the Dutch community, a former member of the House of Assembly.

His house was searched, the floors were taken up, and the whole garden was dug out of recognition in a search for documents that might have proved that his son, or himself, or any other member of his family had been in correspondence with the two Republics.

All this kind of thing was done on hearsay evidence, behind which lay personal motives.

Had the settlement of the country been left entirely in the hands of Lord Kitchener, nothing approaching what I have related could have occurred.

Unfortunately for all concerned, this was precisely the thing which the Rhodesian and other interests opposed.