TOPIC:

(By cable from the special correspondent of the Star in London)

LONDON, March 27th - The correspondent of the Times sends that paper today a graphic account by mail of the Battle of Paardeburg, which resulted in the defeat of the Boer army under General Cronje, and brought about the ultimate surrender of the Free State Commander.

The correspondent tells how the instance of the Canadians broke the reluctance of Lord Roberts to order the attack, and pass a glowing tribute to their pluck, dicipline and courage of the Canadian troops. The letter is out of Paardeburg and dated March 3rd. General MacDonald, the correspondent says, sent from his bed a note to Lord Roberts reminding him that Tuesday was the anniversary of the Majuba Hill disaster to Sir Henry Colville. He also submitted a suggestion for an attack.

Lord Roberts demurred. It seemed likely to cost to heavenly. But the insistence of Canada broke down the reluctance.

The men of the oldest colony were sent out in the small hours to redeem the blot on the name of the Mother Country.

In dead silence, covered by darkness only faintly illuminated by the merest rim of a dying moon, with the old moon in her lap, three companies of the Canadians moved on over the battle strewn ground. For 400 yards the noiseless advance continued. When within eighty yards of the Boer trenches the trampling of scrub betrayed the movement.

Instantly the outer trench of the Boers burst into fire, which kept up almost without intermission from five minuets to three to ten minuets past three.

Under this fire the courage and disipline of the Canadians was amply proved. Flinging themselves on the ground they kept an incessant fire on the trenches, guided by the flashes of the enemy's rifles.

The Boers admit they quickly reduced them to the necessity of lifting their rifles over their heads, pulling their triggers at random edge of the bank to the crest, and then for sixty yards out through the scrub. The Canadians retired three yards to this protection, and waited for dawn, confident in the new position which they had entered. They were protected by the angle of the Boer, which commandeered alike the rifle pits on the banks and the trefoil-shaped embrasures on the north.

Cronje saw that matters were desperate and many Boers threw up their hands and dashed unarmed across the intervening space. Others waved white flags and exposed themselves carelessly on the entrenchment.

Not a shot was fired. Colonel Otter and Major Kincade held a hasty consultation, which was disturbed by the sight of Colvile, general of the Ninth Division,
quietly riding down within 500 yards of the northern Boer trenches to bring news of the surrender of the Boers there.

The three Canadian companies were foremost in the fight, of which the company under Major Pelletier suffered the most.