Editing Paul Kruger (section)

===Resurgence===
The Jameson Raid ruined Rhodes's political reputation in the Cape and lost him his longstanding support from the [[Afrikaner Bond]]; he resigned as prime minister of the Cape Colony on 12 January.{{sfn|Meintjes|1974|p = 190}} Kruger's handling of the affair made his name a household word across the world and won him much support from Afrikaners in the Cape and the Orange Free State, who began to visit Pretoria in large numbers.{{sfn|Meintjes|1974|p = 199}} The President granted personal audiences to travellers and writers such as [[Olive Schreiner]] and [[Frank Harris]],{{sfn|Meintjes|1974|p = 199}} and wore the knightly orders of the Netherlands, Portugal, Belgium and France on his sash of state.{{sfn|Meintjes|1974|p = 205}} Jameson was jailed by the British but released after four months. The republic made armament one of its main priorities, ordering huge quantities of rifles, munitions, [[field gun]]s and [[howitzer]]s, primarily from Germany and France.{{sfn|Meintjes|1974|pp = 199–200}}

[[File:Marthinus Theunis Steyn.jpg|thumb|left|upright|President [[Marthinus Theunis Steyn]] of the Orange Free State|alt=A man with an enormous dark beard wearing a sash of state]]
In March 1896 Marthinus Theunis Steyn, the young lawyer Kruger had encountered on the ship to England two decades earlier, became President of the Orange Free State.{{sfn|Meintjes|1974|p = 202}} They quickly won each other's confidence; each man's memoirs would describe the other in glowing terms.{{#tag:ref|Steyn is described in Kruger's autobiography as "one of the greatest and noblest men that have seen the light of South Africa".{{sfn|Meintjes|1974|p=203}} Working alongside Kruger, Steyn wrote, was "one of my greatest privileges".{{sfn|Meintjes|1974|p=203}}|group = "n"|name = "memoirssteyn"}} Chamberlain began to take exception to the South African Republic's diplomatic actions, such as joining the [[Geneva Conventions|Geneva Convention]], which he said breached Article IV of the London Convention (which forbade extraterritorial dealings except ''vis-a-vis'' the Orange Free State). Chamberlain asserted that the Transvaal was still under British suzerainty, a claim Kruger called "nonsensical".{{sfn|Meintjes|1974|pp = 195, 203–204}} Kruger and Steyn concluded a treaty of trade and friendship in Bloemfontein in March 1897, along with a fresh military alliance binding each republic to defend the other's independence.{{sfn|Meintjes|1974|pp = 206–207}} Two months later [[Alfred Milner, 1st Viscount Milner|Sir Alfred Milner]] became the new high commissioner and governor in Cape Town.{{sfn|Meintjes|1974|pp = 207–208}}

Kruger developed a habit of threatening to resign whenever the volksraad did not give him his way. In the 1897 session there was much surprise when the new member [[Louis Botha]] reacted to the usual proffered resignation by leaping up and moving to accept it.{{sfn|Meintjes|1974|pp = 209–210}} A constitutional crisis developed after the judiciary under Chief Justice Kotzé abandoned its prior stance of giving volksraad resolutions legal precedence over the constitution. "This decision would have upset the whole country", Kruger recalled, "for a number of rules concerning the goldfields, the franchise and so on depended on resolutions of the volksraad."{{sfn|Meintjes|1974|pp = 208–209}} Chief Justice De Villiers of the Cape mediated, sided with Kruger and upheld the volksraad decrees.{{sfn|Meintjes|1974|pp = 208–209}}{{#tag:ref|In late 1897 [[Joshua Slocum]], who was attempting to become the first to [[Around the world sailing record|sail single-handedly around the globe]], disembarked in Cape Town and was presented to Kruger in Pretoria. On hearing Slocum intended to circumnavigate the Earth, Kruger retorted: "You don't mean ''round'' the world, it is impossible! You mean ''in'' the world. Impossible! Impossible!" and refused to say another word to him.{{sfn|Slocum|1901|p=243}} Slocum completed his circumnavigation the following year and in 1900 released a memoir about it, ''[[Sailing Alone Around the World]]'', in which he recalled his meeting with Kruger fondly: "the incident pleased me more than anything else that could have happened."{{sfn|Slocum|1901|p=243}}|group = "n"|name = "slocum"}}

[[File:Jan Smuts 1895.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Jan Smuts]], Kruger's State Attorney from 1898|alt=A young man in a dark jacket with a dark bow tie]]
Kruger was never more popular domestically than during the 1897–98 [[1898 Transvaal presidential election|election]] campaign, and indeed was widely perceived to be jollier than he had been in years. He won his most decisive election victory yet—12,853 votes to Joubert's 2,001 and [[Schalk Willem Burger]]'s 3,753—and was sworn in as president for the fourth time on 12 May 1898. After a three-hour inauguration address, his longest speech as president, his first act of his fourth term was to sack Kotzé, who was still claiming the right to test legislation in the courts. To Kruger's critics this lent much credence to the notion that he was a tyrant.{{sfn|Meintjes|1974|pp = 211–213}}  Milner called Kotzé's dismissal "the end of real justice in the Transvaal" and a step that "threatened all British subjects and interests there".{{sfn|Meintjes|1974|pp = 211–213}}{{#tag:ref|Kotzé's replacement as Chief Justice was [[Reinhold Gregorowski]].{{sfn|Meintjes|1974|pp=211–213}}|group = "n"|name = "gregorowski"}}

Kruger's final administration was, Meintjes suggests, the strongest in the history of the republic.{{sfn|Meintjes|1974|p = 216}} He had the former Free State President F&nbsp;W Reitz as State Secretary from June 1898 and Leyds, who set up an office in [[Brussels]], as [[Envoy (title)|Envoy Extraordinary]] in Europe. The post of State Attorney was given to a young lawyer from the Cape called [[Jan Smuts]],{{sfn|Meintjes|1974|pp = 214–215}} for whom Kruger presaged great things.{{#tag:ref|Kruger predicted in his 1902 autobiography that Smuts would "play a great part in the future history of South Africa".{{sfn|Kruger|1902|pp=264–265}}|group = "n"|name = "smuts"}} The removal of Leyds to Europe marked the end of Kruger's longstanding policy of giving important government posts to Dutchmen; convinced of Cape Afrikaners' sympathy following the Jameson Raid, he preferred them from this point on.{{sfn|Meintjes|1974|pp = 199, 220}}