Rhodes always hoped that his personal influence on the English, as well as among the Bond party, would enable him to persuade the leaders of the rebel movement in Cape Colony to lay down their arms and to leave their interests in his hands.

Should such a thing have happened, Rhodes thought that such a success as this would efface the bad impression left by the Raid.

He grudgingly admitted that that wild adventure had not pleased people, but he always refused to acknowledge that it was the one great and unredeemable mistake of his life.

I remember once having quoted to him the old French motto which in the Middle Ages was the creed of every true knight: "Mon ame a Dieu, Mon bras au roi, Mon coeur aux dames, L'honneur a moi!" "Ah, yes! In those times one could still think about such things," he simply remarked, which proved to me that he had no comprehension of the real sense of the beautiful words.

The higher attributes of mind did not trouble him either in the hours of his greatest triumphs or in the moments when Fortune ceased to smile upon him.