But I should not be surprised if, when the President remarked that Delagoa was Portuguese, he had replied, "It does not matter, and you must simply take it." This would have been far more to the point, as it would have hinted to those who knew how to read between the lines that England, which Rhodes was persuaded was incarnated in himself, would not mind if the Transvaal did lay hands on Delagoa Bay.

Such an act would furnish the British Government with a pretext for dabbling to some effect in the affairs of the Transvaal Republic.
Such a move as this would have been just one of these things which Rhodes was fond of doing.

He felt sometimes a kind of malicious pleasure in whispering to others the very things likely to get them into trouble should they be so foolish as to do them.

In the case of President Kruger, however, he had to deal with a mind which, though uncouth, yet possessed all the "slimness" of which so many examples are to be found in South Africa.
Kruger wrote, "Rhodes represented capital, no matter how base and contemptible, and whether by lying, bribery or treachery, all and every means were welcome to him if they led to the attainment of his ambitious desires." But Oom Paul was absolutely wrong in thinking that it was the personage he was thus describing who practised all these abominations.

He ought to have remembered that it was his name only which was associated with all these basenesses, and the man himself, if left to his better self, would never have condescended to the many acts of doubtful morality with which his memory will remain associated in history.
I am firmly convinced that on his own impulse he would never, for instance, have ventured on the Raid.