As in Part VIII the papers of this period are at times illuminating but historically disjointed. Again Smuts's own letters are sparsely scattered and he and his doings must be seen for the most part in the mirror of his friends' letters. He wrote often to his wife and sometimes to the older children when he was attending the parliamentary Sessions in the legislative capital, Cape Town, while they were at the home farm near Pretoria, the administrative capital. These letters are domestic—playful and affectionate; though sometimes they do contain comments on public affairs. Botha's absence in the early months of 1911, when he attended the Imperial Conference in London, produced a short series of his rare and charming letters to Smuts in which the quality of their friendship and the nature of their political partnership are apparent (498, 500–502, 539, 546).

The first two years of Botha's Government passed without overt crisis. Smuts at first held three portfolios—the Interior, Mines and Defence. In June 1912 he was relieved of the first two and became responsible for Finance as well as Defence (531, 534). When his colleagues fell ill or were on leave ‘the willing horse’, as he described himself, carried the extra load (536, 552). Scattered references to this life of ‘penal servitude’ reveal little except that it was arduous; the full record of it is locked up in official files.