This, however, is not the worst part of the case.
Not only was Nicholls arrested in company with sham conspirators, but for some time he was refused access to a legal adviser, and even his letters to our Agent and to the American Consul were kept back for several days. Again, Beatty, the chief detective of the Transvaal Republic, swore an affidavit that Nicholls, Tremlett, Ellis, and others had committed the crime of high treason, though, as a matter of fact, Tremlett and Ellis were at the time actually in the employ of Beatty, and were working with him to get up the case against Nicholls. We do not wish to be unfair to the Boers, but when a State has to stoop to such methods as these, they can hardly be described as "a brave and simple people." Remember that, in fact, Nicholls was entirely innocent, and that the Boer Executive had not even the excuse of a great crime having been committed and the consequent panic. The Nicholls case was a pure police affair of the kind got up in Paris during the reign of Napoleon III. for the purpose of striking terror.
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