Having been detained at Kuruman about a fortnight by the breaking of a wagon-wheel, I was thus providentially prevented from being present at the attack of the Boers on the Bakwains, news of which was brought, about the end of that time, by Masebele, the wife of Sechele.  She had herself been hidden in a cleft of a rock, over which a number of Boers were firing.  Her infant began to cry, and, terrified lest this should attract the attention of the men, the muzzles of whose guns appeared at every discharge over her head, she took off her armlets as playthings to quiet the child.  She brought Mr. Moffat a letter, which tells its own tale.  Nearly literally translated it was as follows: 

“Friend of my heart’s love, and of all the confidence of my heart, I am Sechele.  I am undone by the Boers, who attacked me, though I had no guilt with them.  They demanded that I should be in their kingdom, and I refused.  They demanded that I should prevent the English and Griquas from passing (northward).  I replied, These are my friends, and I can prevent no one (of them).  They came on Saturday, and I besought them not to fight on Sunday, and they assented.  They began on Monday morning at twilight, and fired with all their might, and burned the town with fire, and scattered us.  They killed sixty of my people, and captured women, and children, and men.  And the mother of Baleriling (a former wife of Sechele) they also took prisoner.  They took all the cattle and all the goods of the Bakwains; and the house of Livingstone they plundered, taking away all his goods.  The number of wagons they had was eighty-five, and a cannon; and after they had stolen my own wagon and that of Macabe, then the number of their wagons (counting the cannon as one) was eighty-eight.  All the goods of the hunters (certain English gentlemen hunting and exploring in the north) were burned in the town; and of the Boers were killed twenty-eight.  Yes, my beloved friend, now my wife goes to see the children, and Kobus Hae will convey her to you.  I am, Sechele, The Son of Mochoasele.”

This statement is in exact accordance with the account given by the native teacher Mebalwe, and also that sent by some of the Boers themselves to the public colonial papers.  The crime of cattle-stealing, of which we hear so much near Caffreland, was never alleged against these people, and, if a single case had occurred when I was in the country, I must have heard of it, and would at once say so.  But the only crime imputed in the papers was that “Sechele was getting too saucy.”  The demand made for his subjection and service in preventing the English traders passing to the north was kept out of view.

Very soon after Pretorius had sent the marauding party against Kolobeng, he was called away to the tribunal of infinite justice.  His policy is justified by the Boers generally from the instructions given to the Jewish warriors in Deuteronomy 20:10-14.  Hence, when he died, the obituary notice ended with “Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord.”  I wish he had not “forbidden us to preach unto the Gentiles that they may be saved.”