Yes; and from widows, who had not even sons on commando, everything was taken away.

If then the English, on their part, had broken the contract, were not the burghers perfectly justified in considering themselves no longer bound by the conditions which the oath laid on them?
And then if one goes further into the matter, and remembers that the English had been employing such people as the National Scouts, and had thus been arming men who had taken the oath of neutrality, how can one think that the Boer was still under the obligation of keeping his oath?
There is also the obligation which every one is under to his own Government; for what Government could ever acknowledge an oath which their citizens had no right to take?
No! taking everything into consideration, no right-minded burgher could have acted otherwise than to take his weapons up again, not only in order to be faithful to his duty as a citizen, but also in order not to be branded as a coward, as a man who in the future could never again look any one in the face.
I arranged various matters at Doornspruit, in the district of Kroonstad, on the 23rd of September, 1900, and then went from there in the direction of Rietfontein, in order to meet the commando which I had ordered to be at Heilbron on the 25th.
[Footnote 70: Commandant Van Tender had been made prisoner at the same time, but he eluded the vigilance of his captors, and running for his life under a shower of their bullets, got away in safety.] [Footnote 71: Uncle Peter.] [Footnote 72: Judge.].