The Uitlanders determined upon a petition to the Queen, and in doing so they brought their grievances out of the limits of a local controversy into the broader field of international politics.

Great Britain must either protect them or acknowledge that their protection was beyond her power.

A direct petition to the Queen praying for protection was signed in April 1899 by twenty-one thousand Uitlanders.

From that time events moved inevitably towards the one end.

Sometimes the surface was troubled and sometimes smooth, but the stream always ran swiftly and the roar of the fall sounded ever louder in the ears..