Boer History1665 at the Cape of Good Hope: Open War, Castle Works, and the Royal Charles
Open War — Tidings of 9 June 1665
For many months after the war warnings of late 1664, the Cape remained in suspense. Directors had written of English pressure on Dutch possessions in North America and on the Guinea coast while formal peace still held in Europe. At length, on the 9th of June 1665, tidings reached South Africa that the English had seized a great number of ships in the Channel, that the Dutch were retaliating, and that the two nations were openly at war. The long uncertainty that had shaped fortress orders and detention of troops now became a standing condition of every ship that entered Table Bay. [3]
Commercial rivalry lay behind the rupture. Colonial archives preserved proof that outrages in distant seas were not confined to one flag: Dutch and English crews alike committed piratical acts without punishment. One detailed Cape case recorded an Indiaman’s people overhauling two English vessels on the outward passage and torturing officers with burning rope-yarn to force confession of treasure. That episode belonged to the climate of suspicion in which Wagenaar’s council now received confirmed news of open war and prepared to treat English visitors as enemies when opportunity offered. [3]
Three Hundred Soldiers and the Castle Works
The directors’ resolution to replace the crumbling earthen fort with a strong stone fortress capable of heavy guns and a large body of troops now moved from paper into labour. Instructions had ordered Commander Zacharias Wagenaar to detain three hundred soldiers from passing ships and to employ them in getting materials ready. Pieter Dombaer, an engineer, was appointed to superintend the work. Selection of the site, a matter of first importance, remained entrusted to commissioner Isbrand Goske (also written Godsken, Gotsken, Godske), one of the ablest officers in the Company’s service. [3]
A scene of unwonted activity followed at the Cape. The three hundred soldiers were landed and set at once to quarrying stone. A party of convicts and slaves went to Robben Island to gather shells. Three or four large decked boats kept busy transporting those shells, and fuel from Hout Bay, for the limekilns. All waggons in the settlement not required for agriculture were engaged in the carriage of building material. Farmers received six shillings and three pence a day for each waggon with oxen and one man, whether a hired servant or a slave. The old fort still housed the council and the magazines, but the valley’s labour map had already shifted toward the trenches that would hold the new walls. [3]
Goske Chooses the Castle Site — August 1665
On the 18th of August 1665 commissioner Goske arrived in the ship Nieuw Middelburg. After eight days’ inspection of Table Valley, with the approval of a large board consisting of the ordinary council of policy and a number of naval and military officers, he selected the site of the castle. The spot chosen lay sixty Rhynland roods (two hundred and forty-eight imperial yards) to the eastward of the old fort. It had been supposed that solid rock would be found near the surface. Opening the trenches proved that hope false: at no point could foundation walls be commenced nearer the surface than eleven feet, and in some parts excavations more than double that depth were needed. [3]
The foundations were planned twelve feet thick, so that even the trenches of a single point of the five-pointed design were a work of magnitude. Through the remainder of 1665 the settlement’s spare oxen, boats, and detained soldiers kept feeding stone, shell-lime, and fuel into those openings. The ceremonial laying of the first stones would wait until Saturday the 2nd of January 1666, when only one point’s trenches were complete; the year’s work was the site decision, the depth of the dig, and the organised haulage that made a stone castle more than a directors’ sketch. [3]
The Comet, Ernestus Back, and Jan Joris Graa
For thirteen years after its foundation the settlement had been considered too small to demand a resident clergyman. A sermon and prayers were read regularly every Sunday and on special occasions by the sick-comforter; other rites were performed occasionally by ships’ chaplains; marriages were usually celebrated before the secretary of the council. After Pieter van der Stael left for Batavia in September 1663, Ernestus Back, who had held the same office on board a ship, filled the vacant place. Back was so addicted to intemperance that at times he was unfit for duty. He was repeatedly suspended, on which occasions the fiscal conducted the services, but punishment and disgrace seemed only to harden him. [3]
Wagenaar feared that Back’s conduct would bring divine vengeance upon the whole community. His alarm increased with the appearance of a comet visible nightly for two months. He and his council did not doubt that the terrible star with a tail was put there by God as a threat of righteous punishment, and therefore judged it high time to remove the chief offender. A yacht lay ready for Batavia. Back and his family were unceremoniously hurried on board; the Cape council’s despatch of the 7th of February 1665 to Governor-General Joan Maetsuijker set out the reasoning in plain Dutch. Stringent regulations against sabbath-breaking followed the comet’s appearance and were attributable to it — a proclamation of the 15th of January 1665. [3]
A fortnight later the office was filled by transfer of a sick-comforter named Jan Joris Graa from a calling ship. Graa gave every promise of a useful and honourable career when he was removed by death in June 1665. Thus the church still had a humble representative at the fort, but the vacancy and the wartime decision to raise a stone castle together pushed the directors toward a permanent clergyman rather than another stop-gap comforter. [3]
Johan van Arckel and the First Consistory
When it was decided to replace the old earthen fort with a substantial stone castle, it was also decided to provide a resident clergyman for the growing congregation. The Rev. Johan van Arckel, who received the appointment, arrived in the same Nieuw Middelburg that brought Goske, casting anchor in Table Bay on the 18th of August 1665. A few days later an ecclesiastical court was established. Its constitution showed the intimate relationship then existing between church and state: a member of the council of policy sat as political commissioner (commissaris politicq); the clergyman was a servant of the Company; deacons were selected by the council of policy from a double list furnished yearly by the court itself; elders were elected by the court as representatives of the congregation but could perform no duties until the elections were confirmed by the temporal authorities. [3]
That consistory, or ecclesiastical court, held primary control of purely religious observances and the first direction of educational institutions throughout the Company’s government of the colony. It was in one sense an engine of the state, always subordinate to the council of policy. In practice it was guided by the decrees of the synod of Dort and by fatherland precedents that were never disputed, and its decisions appear generally to have been in accord with public opinion at the Cape. [3]
Van Arckel embraced the views held by the Amsterdam classis and the Batavia court on the baptism of children of unbelieving slaves, baptizing all children brought to him whether of believing or unbelieving parents. The Company’s own slave children were sent to school, where they were taught to say their prayers and to repeat the Heidelberg catechism. For a time strife in ecclesiastical matters ceased, for the clergyman won affection by gentleness and piety. His lasting work at the Cape was short: he would die on the 12th of January 1666 after a brief illness, less than six months from arrival; the foundation he laid in late 1665 was the resident ministry and the standing consistory itself. [3]
The Royal Charles Chase — 20–21 September 1665
In the afternoon of the 20th of September 1665 an Indiaman with the red flag of England floating at her mizen peak stood into Table Bay and dropped an anchor without furling her sails. The Loosduynen, a clumsily rigged, slow-sailing flute just in port after a long passage from Texel, was the only vessel then in the roadstead. The stranger sent ashore a small boat with a petty officer who informed the commander that the ship was the Royal Charles, of thirty-six guns, bound homewards from Surat with a cargo of pepper and calico. The captain, James Barker, requested permission to take in water and to purchase fresh provisions. [3]
The English had not the faintest suspicion that their country was at war with the Netherlands. As soon as Wagenaar became aware of that ignorance he determined to take advantage of it and get possession of the ship by strategy. The four men who had come ashore were hospitably entertained; their request was apparently acceded to; when they returned to their ship a present of fruit and wine went to Captain Barker. The object was to induce the captain to visit the fort so that he could be detained without trouble. The scheme was nearly thwarted by a drunken mate of the Loosduynen who, coming ashore with a strong crew as the English went off, pulled alongside, took their boat in tow, and forced them back to the fort. He was instantly committed to prison for his trouble, and many apologies were offered to the Englishmen for the rudeness and violence they had suffered. [3]
During the night arrangements were made to carry the Royal Charles by surprise as soon as the captain should land. About two hundred and fifty men were armed and distributed in the Loosduynen and the large decked boats that brought shells from Robben Island. It was intended that these should approach as if by chance and suddenly board the unsuspecting stranger. At daybreak next morning the Royal Charles sent her empty water-casks ashore in the longboat, with the captain’s brother and ten seamen, who brought a present of some value for the commander in return for the previous evening’s courtesy. The Englishmen were invited into the courtyard of the fort; the gate closed upon them; they were informed that they were prisoners of war. [3]
Meantime the non-combatants of the settlement, male and female, betook themselves to the side of the Lion’s Rump to witness the capture. About seven in the morning Captain Barker became suddenly aware that something was wrong: no sign of his longboat’s return, cutters creeping alongside, the Loosduynen shaking out canvas, shallops full of men at points along the shore. The sails of the Royal Charles still hung loose from her yards; a light breeze from the north-west rippled the bay. In a few seconds the topsails were sheeted home, the hempen cable severed by a couple of axe strokes, and the Indiaman, gathering way as canvas spread, stood over toward the Blueberg shore. [3]
All hope of surprise gone, the Loosduynen and the cutters hoisted colours and followed, keeping close together. The Royal Charles had the weather-gauge and was the faster sailer, but she could not beat out of the bay and tacked about for three or four hours while the pursuers tried in vain to get alongside. About eleven o’clock the breeze died away; she let go an anchor and fired several shots of defiance. There were not enough rowing boats in the bay to attack her, so she was safe as long as the calm lasted. At noon Barker waved a white flag. A boat went alongside; he demanded the cause of the commotion and why his men were detained. He was told he would learn all particulars if he went on board the Loosduynen, and was requested to strike his flag. His reply was more emphatic than polite. He did, however, throw to the boat a package of letters from Surat, adding a scornful message for the commander. [3]
Toward evening the breeze sprang up again and the chase resumed. After a couple of tacks the Royal Charles was fortunate enough to weather Green Point, passing close to the hostile squadron as she did so. Pursuers and pursued had not been within range of each other during the whole day, but at last there was a chance for a shot. It was getting dusk when the Loosduynen fired a broadside; the Royal Charles replied with her four stern guns. Nobody was hurt on either side, and before the culverins could be loaded again the Englishman had disappeared in the darkness. Wagenaar was disappointed, but he made the most of what had fallen to him: that evening he calculated to a gulden the value of the longboat and water-casks, the present the captives had brought ashore, and the two anchors and cables left in the bay, allowing a reasonable margin for the expense of searching for the last and fishing them up when found. [3]
Prisoners of War Sent to Batavia
The English prisoners offered to work without payment if the commander would promise to send them to Europe with the first return fleet. The offer was declined. They were sent to Batavia after being provided with a very scanty outfit. The episode left the Cape with a handful of captives, a longboat, casks, gifts, and anchors on the credit side of a failed seizure, and a clear demonstration that open war had reached the roadstead even when the quarry escaped. [3]
First Horse Auction and Settlement Economy
The Javanese horses had increased so greatly in number that the Company began to supply the farmers with them. In 1665 the first troop of sixteen was sold by public auction and brought on an average four pounds five shillings each. The notice posted at the fort on the 21st of February 1665 advertised young horses bred in the country, stallions and mares, to be sold to the highest bidder or out of hand at the Company’s stable on the coming Wednesday afternoon at three o’clock, the 25th of the month — ending with the customary cry Segget voorth. [3]
Grain prices paid by the Company had already been raised because the burghers complained that the old rates allowed them no profit: wheat to eleven shillings and eight pence, rye and barley to nine shillings and two pence, oats to six shillings and eight pence the muid. Farmers were paying from sixteen shillings and eight pence to twenty-five shillings a month to European men-servants. The horse auction thus fitted a wider adjustment in which free producers drew more stock and better cereal returns from the Company’s stores and stables while wages and fixed prices still framed every bargain in Table Valley. [3]
Van Meerhof Overseer on Robben Island
Eva, brought up in Mr van Riebeeck’s house, had been baptized soon after Wagenaar’s arrival and two years later married to the explorer Pieter van Meerhof. In the year following that marriage — 1665 — van Meerhof was further advanced to the office of overseer on Robben Island, where in addition to the old establishment a party of men was placed to collect shells and dress stones for particular work in the castle. The interpreter household of the first commander’s years thus became tied directly to the lime and dressed stone of the war fortress. [3]
Shell-boats already plied between the island and the limekilns for the three hundred soldiers’ masonry. Placing a trusted surgeon-explorer over both the old island post and the new quarry party kept discipline and supply under one hand while Table Valley’s trenches deepened. The appointment was promotion for van Meerhof and a practical measure for Dombaer’s works rather than a ceremonial honour alone. [3]
Disease among the Cape Clans
In the year following the Cochoqua–Hessequa war and Oedasoa’s refused cattle offer of 1664, the Khoikhoi nearest the Cape suffered very severely from a disease which broke out among them. What its nature was is not stated. As the Europeans were not attacked, it is not probable that it was introduced by them; it was certainly not small-pox. Wagenaar computed the loss of the Goringhaiquas and Gorachouquas at one-fifth of their original number, so that they were left with only about eight hundred fighting men. The Cochoquas suffered even more. In the commander’s words, they melted away. Whether other clans were affected is not mentioned, but the disease can hardly have been confined only to those nearest the Cape. [3]
The number of Khoikhoi residing permanently in Table Valley had increased during Wagenaar’s administration to about eighty souls, an influx of unsettled individuals from the pastoral clans with a kraal under the Lion’s Head nominally under Jan Cou after Harry’s death. They understood Dutch so well that an interpreter was no longer needed in ordinary dealing. The inland mortality of 1665 did not erase that small valley population, but it thinned the fighting strength of the western Cape clans with whom the settlement traded and negotiated. [3]
Van Quaelberg Leaves Holland — December 1665
Commander Wagenaar had requested relief from the cares of government on grounds of ill health, and in December 1664 had been informed of the appointment of Cornelis van Quaelberg as successor. Van Quaelberg left Holland in the ship Dordrecht on the 19th of December 1665, though he would not reach South Africa until the 25th of August 1666. During the war, ships sailing from the Netherlands for the Indies did not attempt the English Channel but stood away to the north-west and rounded the British Islands. In midwinter the Dordrecht was so battered in the stormy North Sea that she was compelled to put into the Faröe Isles, where she lay for nine weeks; after leaving those isles she lost by death one hundred and ten sailors and soldiers. Those hardships belong to the passage; the Cape’s closing fact of calendar 1665 was that the named successor was at last at sea. [3]
It had been intended that commissioner Goske should remain at the Cape until van Quaelberg’s arrival, but when Goske reached the colony the commander’s health was so improved that it was unnecessary for him to stay after the castle site was fixed. Wagenaar therefore continued in office through the open-war year, directing the stone works, the first resident clergyman’s establishment, the failed seizure of the Royal Charles, and the island shell parties, while his successor beat north-about out of a Europe at war. The settlement’s landward boundary remained where van Riebeeck had left it; the seaward and ecclesiastical map of 1665 was markedly larger than that of the year before. [3]