It was now indicated that something in the spirit of the Middleburg proposal would follow upon the preamble that had been read there, and that the exact contents and form of it would have to be agreed upon. The commission began by taking exception to the preamble, as well as to the proposal itself, and explained their objections.
After much had been said on both sides the Representatives of the British Government proposed that a sub-committee of the commission should be elected to draw up a document, together with Lord Milner, which should, if possible, be acceptable. It was then agreed that General Smuts and Judge Hertzog should act as such a sub-committee, to draft a proposal in co-operation with Lord Milner, advised by Sir Richard Solomon.
The two men who constituted the sub-committee did much. They opposed all endeavours to make the oath of allegiance obligatory. They succeeded in arranging that no judicial steps, either civil or criminal, should be taken for acts done during the war. They insisted that the Governments of both States, if a treaty of peace were made, should sign it as the Governments respectively of the South African Republic and of the Orange Free State, and thus virtually forced the British Government to treat the "annexations" of the two Republics as non-existent, and to negotiate not with late Republics, but with existing States, whose official names, and not the new names given in the annexation proclamation, it would recognise through the signatures of its Representatives.
The sub-committee also championed the cause of the colonists who had fought on our side, and although Lord Milner positively objected to any interference with what he called a matter between the Colonial Government and their own subjects, the members of the sub-committee nevertheless indirectly received the assurance that the colonists would be treated as leniently as possible.
After the sub-committee had, together with Lord Milner, drawn up the document, it was laid before the two parties. A clause was still wanting which should provide for the payment of receipts which officers in the field had given for provisions bought for the use of the commandos during the war, and in the document no sum of money was named that should be paid to the burghers as compensation for damages.