Returning Boers and Rebels - A Matter of Treason?

A few prisoners-of-war were dealt with as " rebels " and were sent back under arrest. On arrival from Ceylon they were handed over to the Cape or Natal authorities to stand their trial.

• • • • • Joseph and William Brooks, charged with high treason, were sentenced to pay a fine of £10 each, or to undergo one month's imprisonment.
        • Jacobs Stephanus Swart, on a similar charge, was sentenced to £20 fine or to two months imprisonment.
        • B. O, Stowe, another Ceylon prisoner-of-war, said to have been of British parentage born in Cape Colony, was charged on arrival at Durban of being a British subject who fought on the Boer side.
        • William Cheney - a youth of 19 from Pietermaritzburg, appears to have excited special interest. His mother had distinguished herself by reason of having bad six sons fighting for the British in various columns. William Cheney did not follow his brothers' example. He went to the Free State a few months before the war began and was induced by the Boers to fight for the Republic. He was in one of the Boer units sent to reinforce General Cronje at Paardeberg, but here took the opportunity to desert to the British lines. He was made a prisoner, sent to Ceylon, and eventually sent back to Natal as a "rebel" to face a charge of "high treason''. According to the London Standard's Durban correspondent, forty-one Cape Colonists were arrested on their return from the prisoner-of-war camps in Ceylon, on charges of high treason.

The younger Gillingham was the first Boer to pay his way home. He declared he was going direct to Pretoria to look after his father's business until his father joined him. G. H. Neethling, the ex-M.P., of the Transvaal, was a passenger for South Africa on the City of Benares.

Revd. Postma and his. wife, temporarily residing at '' Guyscliff " in the Cinnamon Gardens, were passengers on the S.S. Gera. The Somali took away Commandants Boshoff and Wilcook who were captured with Cronje at Paardeberg; Adjutant Boshoff, a son of the Commandant ; . also three others named Botha, Hollard, and Cardinal. They proceeded to Zanzibar and transhipped to Durban. The Umlazi removed Kruger, the son of the ex-President, who said he was proceeding direct to his farm at Grassenburg where he intended settling, and Mors who had been connected with the Ceylon Government Printing Office. The elder Gillingham was nearly the last to pay his way home. He sailed in December by the S.S. Pangola, loathe to leave Ceylon, but glad to take over his large interests in South Africa.