Boer History1766 at the Cape of Good Hope: Meermin Mutiny, Tulbagh’s Illness, Earthquake, and Mentz at Swellendam
Sixteenth Year: Castle Continuity — 1766
Calendar 1766 opened in the sixteenth year of Ryk Tulbagh in the first chair. He had not been quite fifty-two when, on the 27th of February 1751, he became governor; the public presentation to the burghers and the promise of fidelity from the official boards had followed on the 15th of April. Saturday, the 8th of April 1752, had been a day of thanksgiving for a hundred years of Company possession, looking back to the gardens of 1652. In 1753 his wife Elizabeth Swellengrebel had died after seventeen years of marriage and had left him a childless widower. March 1755 had raised him councillor extraordinary of Netherlands India, a rank higher than governor without adding to his duties. The fifteenth year had closed with Clive sailed on the 16th of January, a Madagascar packet still on her return, a hospital square of 130 feet finished at Simon’s Town, and rice bought to compensate for a harvest that had hardly been a harvest at all. The sixteenth opened with the same men in the chairs: Pieter van Reede van Oudtshoorn, named acting secunde on the 12th of December 1760 after Sergius Swellengrebel’s death and confirmed by the directors, sat the second chair; Jan Willem Cloppenburg had arrived in September 1762 and still held the independent fiscal’s pen that Van Oudtshoorn had held since September 1741. Jacobus Johannes le Sueur sat Stellenbosch, having succeeded Adriaan van Schoor in August 1763. Jan Andries Horak still sat Swellendam. Jan Frederik Kirsten sat the winter port with the title of resident. The Castle’s ordinary business—open access, fixed fees, no private trading by officers—was a sixteenth year’s habit. The sumptuary laws adapted on the 25th of March 1755 still stood: no gilded coach but the governor’s, no livery but a councillor’s coachman, no large umbrella but a senior merchant’s or a board lady’s. [3] [7] [9]
As governor he was accessible without the least difficulty to all who wished to see him. The humblest individual could pour grievances into the ears of the father of the country and be sure of a patient hearing. If the complaints were well grounded, he obtained speedy redress; in any case he was sure of good counsel. That quality more than any other endeared him to the people. His probity was beyond suspicion in an age when probity was hardly looked for in men holding such posts. Company salaries were small, and it was taken almost as a matter of course that officers would supplement their incomes in any way not punishable by law. Tulbagh set his face firmly against that habit. He neither traded on his own account nor would he allow any other officer of the government to do so. The fees they were permitted to receive in certain transactions were fixed, and they were restricted from taking more. He regulated his own expenses so that he lived well within his income and allowances, and used what he had to spare in relieving the wants of others. Under his administration every man was certain of getting his dues. No man was put to unnecessary delay; no bribes were received; no false accounts were rendered. Equanimity and a lack of swashbuckling dash did not mean an uneventful chair. He had never sought popularity for popularity’s sake. Gentle and tolerant he remained; strong when the governor’s authority was defied. The sixteenth year tested that strength on a packet whose irons had been taken off at sea, on a second chair that would empty in April, on a body whose life would be despaired of before the year closed, and on a slight shock that threw hospital bedsteads against the walls at Simon’s Town. [3] [7] [9]
Continuity of persons was the point of the sixteenth year’s opening as much as novelty of wreck and leave. The same castle, the same boards, and many of the same officers remained—until April took the secunde to Europe and December took the Swellendam chair from Horak. Europeans and Khoikhoi were living together on friendly terms in the old districts, but occasionally the peace was disturbed by San marauders. Land continued to be allotted to colonists without consulting Khoikhoi clans. Plenty of land still seemed left. Cattle runs in the outward districts were probably never less than five or six thousand acres, for which, when it could be recovered, a yearly rental was paid—£2 10s. until 1732 and £5 thereafter. The eastern hamlet of Swellendam remained a hamlet; the pontoon placed on the Breede in 1757, close to the junction of the Zonder End, was still the public boat on that road. The Rev. Hendrik Kroonenburg, the Rev. Johannes Frederik Bode, and the Rev. Johannes Petrus Serrurier of Hanau still sat the Cape pulpit three deep, as Amsterdam had ordered in 1761. The Rev. Gerhardus Croeser still sat Zwartland. The Rev. Johannes Appeldoorn, stationed at Stellenbosch since October 1753, still sat that village. The Rev. Van der Spuy still sat Drakenstein. Roodezand’s church at Waveren was still under Remmerus Harders. Combined consistories had already ceased in 1759; their travelling charges would not sit on the congregations in the sixteenth year. [3] [4] [8]
In the census returns of 1754 the number of colonists of both sexes and all ages had been given as 5,510, and the number of slaves owned by them as 6,279. In those of 1756 the number of colonists is given as 5,128, and of their slaves as 5,787. No later count sat on the Castle table in 1766. In ordinary years the number of deaths stood to baptisms roughly as 100 to 261, and there was a constant accession to the colonial population by servants of the Company taking their discharge. The figures, though they cannot be depended upon as absolutely accurate, still give the idea of the heavy loss of life by the smallpox. Table Valley had buried 963 Europeans and 1,109 blacks between the 1st of May and the 31st of October 1755. With the Khoikhoi the disease had created great havoc, spreading farther inland than in 1713—felt in Great Namaqualand at least to the twenty-sixth parallel, and in the east to the Great Fish. Before midsummer it had entirely died out. The sixteenth year therefore still lived inside that shadow: fewer free households, fewer bondsmen, and a colony that sold grain and wine into a paying bay while the capital’s labour force stayed thin. Company books had already closed the quarterly 600 guilders sent since 1747 to Tulbagh’s widowed mother Catharina Cattepoel; she had died in 1757. A childless widower sat the first chair without that Dutch household claim. A confirmed secunde sat the second until April. A fiscal independent of four Cape summers sat the high court until the secunde’s leave took him into the second chair. A landdrost of three Cape winters sat Stellenbosch. A landdrost of seventeen years sat Swellendam until December. [3] [9]
Outward, the land regime did not change. Cattle runs of five or six thousand acres still seemed to leave land enough. Yearly rental, when it could be recovered, remained £5 after the fifteen-year quit-rent settlement of 1732. Khoikhoi who still held together in compact bodies retained their own government, with chiefs practically appointed by the Dutch authorities. The greater number had lost old tribal distinctions and lived as dependents of farmers, or wandered and took service as they felt disposed. The courts were open for their protection. Dirk Marx’s report, received after the Doddington wreck, that he had met Xhosa as far west as the Great Fish, remained the frontier note. Calendar 1766 added no second Beutler-scale trek and no second Hop caravan. What it added was a mutiny on a Company packet, a secunde on leave, a governor whose life was despaired of, a slight earthquake before two in the morning, and a new landdrost at a hamlet. In the Republic, Prince William V came of age and succeeded as Stadholder. The Cape still sat under the Seventeen and a governor already councillor extraordinary. Average exports across Tulbagh’s twenty-one years would later be counted at 11,791 muids of wheat, 202 of rye, 68 of barley, 202 of peas, 174 of beans, and 346 leggers of common wine, with butter to India since 1754 averaging 22,322 pounds a year. The sixteenth year sat after a fifteenth that had hardly any harvest and had bought rice to compensate. The drought list of the twenty-one named 1755, 1756, 1763, 1764, and 1771; 1765 had continued that dryness. 1766 was not named among those five. The Castle still sat inside the average, after a year of rice, with a packet coming home. [3] [4] [7] [9]
Meermin Mutiny and Wreck — February 1766
In 1765 the Cape packet Meermin had been sent to Madagascar to procure slaves for the Company. Her supercargo had called at several ports in the island and had succeeded in purchasing one hundred and forty of both sexes. They cost there less than three pounds sterling each, though the rivalry of the English, French, and Portuguese was complained of as increasing the price and making it difficult to obtain cargoes. It was nothing unusual when one fourth to one third of the number taken on board died during the passage, and frequently from one third to half of those landed died within three months, from despondency and change of climate and food. After the arrival of a slave-ship it was not uncommon to find in the journal whole pages of names of those who died during the preceding month, with an occasional comment as to the loss to the Company, but never a word of compassion. Occasionally captives on board made attempts to regain their liberty, but in general such precautions were taken that they were utterly helpless. The sixteenth year opened with that packet still on the passage back, and with those precautions about to fail. [3]
On the passage back the skipper— Gerrit Mulder— caused the irons to be taken off the slaves. A few days afterwards, on the 18th of February 1766, the supercargo very imprudently gave some of them a number of assegais to polish. They seized the opportunity, rose suddenly, and killed the supercargo and the whole of the watch on deck, twenty-four men all told. There were twenty-nine men below. None of these were allowed to come on deck for the next forty-eight hours, but at the end of that time, through the medium of a woman, an agreement was made that no harm should be done to the white men, they on their part promising to convey the people back to Madagascar. The irons had been a precaution. The assegais had been a polish. The watch of twenty-four was dead. The men below were a crew without a deck. The woman was the medium. The promise was Madagascar. The sixteenth year’s first stroke was not a placaat and not a harvest. It was a packet whose skipper had taken the irons off. [3]
The way the crew of the Meermin kept that promise was by steering for Cape Agulhas. After four days’ sail, land was seen, and the people were assured that it was their own country. At a distance of some miles from the coast they required the sailors to drop the anchor and get out the longboat and pinnace, in which over fifty of them, male and female, went ashore, after promising to make signal fires if all was right, and send the boats back for their companions as soon as they could. Near the place where they landed was a farm belonging to Matthys Rostock. Upon seeing the house, they first became aware that they had been deceived. Intelligence of their landing soon spread, and the neighbouring farmers assembled. As the people would not surrender they were attacked, when fourteen were shot and the others were taken prisoners. Four days from a Madagascar promise to an Agulhas farm was the crew’s keeping. A house on a colonial run was the proof. Fourteen dead on Rostock’s ground was the first count of the landing. [3]
Those still on board became very impatient when the boats did not return. There was a current setting towards the land, so the crew wrote an account of their condition and put the papers in bottles which they dropped overboard. They begged that three fires might be kindled on the shore. Two of the bottles were picked up on the beach, and the fires were kindled, as requested. The people then cut the cable, and when the Meermin drifted close to the shore, a canoe was got out in which six of them landed. They had hardly touched the beach when they were surrounded. One was shot, the other five were made prisoners. Those still on board, on seeing this, attacked the crew; but the sailors were able to defend themselves until the vessel ran ashore, when the people surrendered. One hundred and twelve of the slaves finally reached the Cape. The Meermin could not be got off again, and went to pieces where she struck. Bottles for fires, a cut cable, six more on the beach, one more shot, a last attack, a wreck that would not come off: the packet that had bought one hundred and forty at less than three pounds a head delivered one hundred and twelve, and herself, to the Agulhas shore. [3]
The nature of the industries carried on in the colony prevented slavery from becoming here what it was on an American cotton or sugar plantation, and few instances of extreme cruelty are on record; but under the law bondsmen were in a very abject position. In the preamble of a slave code drawn up by Governor Tulbagh and the council it is stated that notwithstanding the stringent proclamations that had from time to time been issued, the misconduct of the slaves was such that for the preservation of peace and good order it was necessary to collect all the laws into one ordinance, and to amplify them to meet existing circumstances. After mature deliberation, the code was drawn up in the castle of Good Hope on the 3rd of September 1754, and two days later was published by being affixed to the notice board, with the great seal of the Company attached to it. The second paragraph condemns to death without mercy any male or female slave who shall raise his or her hand, though without weapons, against master or mistress. For many offences slaves could be flogged at once by the officers of justice, without any trial. When convicted of ordinary crimes, they were punished much more severely than freemen. Some of the death sentences recorded against them horrify the reader by their barbarity: impalement, breaking the limbs on a wheel, and slow strangulation were among the methods of execution. The Meermin’s rising sat inside that code, not outside it. Asiatic slaves still arrived from India in numbers that had already made the Cape council apprehensive. Madagascar remained a regular trade, small vessels sent frequently from the Cape to procure people at less than three pounds a head. The sixteenth year’s wreck did not close that trade. It closed one packet. [3]
Van Oudtshoorn Leaves; Cloppenburg Acting Secunde — April 1766
In April 1766 the secunde Pieter van Reede van Oudtshoorn went to Europe on leave of absence to attend to his private affairs. He had sat the second chair since the 12th of December 1760, named acting after Sergius Swellengrebel’s death and afterwards confirmed. He had held the independent fiscal’s pen from September 1741 until September 1762, when Cloppenburg arrived. Sixteen Cape summers as fiscal, five and a half as secunde, and then a leave for private affairs: the second chair emptied by a ship to Europe, not by a death. The first chair did not empty. Tulbagh remained. The sixteenth year’s April was a leave, not a funeral. [3]
The fiscal Jan Willem Cloppenburg was chosen to act for him. Otto Luder Hemmy was directed to act as fiscal. The principal offices were thereafter filled by men with only acting appointments in those two chairs. Cloppenburg had arrived in September 1762 and had sat the independent fiscal’s seat for three years and seven months. April took him from that seat into the second chair without taking the word acting off the appointment. Hemmy took the fiscal’s pen the same way: directed to act, not named for life. The Castle’s habit of fixed fees and no private trading by officers did not change because the names in the chairs became acting names. The gilded coach remained the governor’s. The sentinel remained at Tulbagh’s door. [3]
Continuity of persons, which had been the civic fact of 1763, 1764, and 1765, therefore broke in April on the second chair and on the fiscal’s pen, and did not break on the first. Le Sueur still sat Stellenbosch. Horak still sat Swellendam. Kirsten still sat the winter port. Kroonenburg, Bode, and Serrurier still sat the Cape pulpit three deep. The Meermin had already gone to pieces on the Agulhas shore. The secunde’s leave did not wait for a new packet. It sat on the same calendar as the wreck: February the mutiny, April the empty second chair. A man who had been fiscal since 1741 and secunde since 1760 went home to attend to private affairs. A man who had been fiscal since 1762 sat for him. A third man sat for the second. The Sixteen still named governors. The Castle named acting chairs when a confirmed man sailed. [3] [9]
Private affairs were a European claim. The Cape’s claim was a second chair that still had to be sat. Produce still had to be received without bribes. Ships still had to be refreshed at an average of seventy a year across the two ports. The fifteenth year’s rice still sat in the magazines’ memory. The sixteenth year’s April did not restore a harvest figure to the India column; it restored an acting name to the secunde’s book. Van Oudtshoorn’s leave was not a resignation on the Cape table. It was a leave. The council chose Cloppenburg to act. Hemmy was directed to act. Until the directors wrote, those were the chairs. [3]
Tulbagh’s Illness — 1766
In his declining years Governor Tulbagh was often laid upon a bed of sickness. In 1766 his life was despaired of, but he rallied, though he did not recover his former strength. The man who had not been quite fifty-two in February 1751 was now in his sixteenth year in the first chair, a childless widower since 1753, councillor extraordinary since March 1755, and still the father of the country to whom the humblest could bring a grievance. Despair of his life was a Castle fact, not a rumour from the roadstead. He rallied. The first chair did not empty. The former strength did not come back. The sixteenth year therefore kept its governor and lost the full measure of the man who had paid the fiftieth penny first, who had set his face against officers’ private trade, and who had lived well within his income. [3] [9]
His house was distinguished from the others only by the sentinel at the door and by sounding the trumpet when he sat down for dinner. It stood by the side of a canal shaded with chestnut trees. In it were pictures of De Ruyter, Tromp, and other illustrious persons in Holland. It was small and plain, and suited to the very few people who had affairs to solicit with him; but the governor himself was so respected and beloved that the inhabitants did not pass his door without showing some mark of their respect. The best policy, he conveyed, was to deal justly and honestly with every man. Since he had no children, and was therefore not obliged to cut a fine figure in society, he devoted what he had toward promoting the happiness of his people. A life despaired of in 1766 sat behind that sentinel and that trumpet. The rally sat there too. The lost former strength sat there as a quieter step between the chestnut trees. [3] [9]
He had never sought popularity for popularity’s sake. He only wanted to be popular with his own conscience, and its dictates clashed frequently with the desires of the people. Equanimity, calmness, and a lack of swashbuckling dash had not made him a ruler only for uneventful years. No direct attacks were launched on the settlement by hostile powers during his term, but the occasions were numerous on which only a firm, determined, and fearless leader could prevent lasting losses. The Meermin’s wreck was not a hostile flag. Van Oudtshoorn’s leave was not an invasion. The despair of the governor’s life was a quieter test. He rallied. The gilded coach remained his. The sumptuary laws still stood. The people still called him Father Tulbagh. The sixteenth year kept that name on a man who no longer had his former strength. [3] [7] [9]
A childless widower whose life had been despaired of, and who had rallied, still sat the first chair through the rest of the calendar. The acting secunde sat the second. The acting fiscal sat the high court. The humblest individual could still pour grievances into the ears of the father of the country—if the father of the country was out of bed. Accessibility had been the quality that endeared him. Illness tested that quality without cancelling it. He rallied. He did not recover his former strength. The sixteenth year closed with both of those sentences true. [3] [9]
Earthquake — 14 July 1766
A little before two o’clock in the morning of the 14th of July 1766 a slight shock of earthquake was felt throughout the Cape peninsula. It was accompanied by a noise like rolling thunder. No damage was caused by it, though at Simon’s Town it was sufficiently violent to throw the bedsteads in the hospital against the walls of the wards. The shock was slight in the capital and harder in the winter port. Rolling thunder at a little before two was the sound. Bedsteads against the walls of the wards was the measure at False Bay. The peninsula felt it. The magazines did not fall. The church tower did not come down. The Castle did not crack. The hospital that had been completed the year before took the violence that Table Valley did not. [3]
Shocks of earthquake had already been felt in September 1695, in September 1739, and in August 1749. July 1766 was another slight count in that list, not a destruction. The gardens of 1652 had stood through the first of those. The Land of Waveren had been occupied since 1700 through the second. The fiftieth penny and the smallpox had sat through the third. The sixteenth year added a fourth, with a noise like rolling thunder and with no damage in Table Valley. What it added at Simon’s Town was a hospital already built, already receiving sick from the winter roadstead, already furnished with bedsteads that could be thrown against a wall. The expensive works of Tulbagh’s years had given the shock a square of 130 feet to shake. [3] [9]
The resident was still Jan Frederik Kirsten, appointed after the death of Adriaan de Nys in May 1761. In March 1751 De Nys had been appointed postholder in succession to Justinus Blas. Kirsten’s title of resident marked the station’s rise from a post to a winter port with an officer in charge. The sixteenth year did not change that title. It gave the title a night of rolling thunder and bedsteads against the walls. Substantial storehouses were then being put up after the hospital’s completion. The building erected in the time of Governor Swellengrebel—which was 450 feet in length and had previously served for all purposes—was now used solely as quarters for the garrison and workmen. The shock that threw bedsteads in the new hospital did not throw down the long shed. False Bay in winter was no longer only a roadstead and a long shed. It was a hospital that could be shaken. [3]
During the twenty-one years, 129 Dutch ships, 14 English, 11 French, 13 Danish, and 2 Swedish put into Simon’s Bay. The winter port was not Table Bay’s equal in numbers. It was Table Bay’s equal in need when the north-west gales came. Completing the hospital in a year of drought and a year of a Madagascar slaving voyage had not been a contradiction. Sick sailors had to land somewhere. Table Valley’s hospital was falling to ruins. The directors had resolved to build a new one there, but the work was not yet commenced, though the materials were being collected. The sixteenth year’s earthquake therefore shook a finished ward at Simon’s Town and an unfinished intention in Table Valley. The winter station had finished first. The shock found it finished. [3] [9]
Mentz Landdrost of Swellendam — December 1766
In 1766 Jan Andries Horak retired from the Company’s service and became a burgher. He had sat Swellendam since April 1749, after Johannes Theophilus Rhenius. Seventeen years and eight months in a mere hamlet, reached from the Cape since 1757 by the Breede pontoon near the Zonder End junction, closed when he left the service. He did not die in the chair. He became a burgher. The Company’s landdrost became a Company’s former servant with a burgher’s name. December took the chair off him. [3]
Joachim Frederik Mentz, who had previously been secretary of the district, was appointed landdrost. The hamlet took its secretary into its chair. Mentz sat from December. Swellendam remained a mere hamlet. To facilitate access to it from the Cape, the pontoon of 1757 still sat on the Breede, close to the junction of the Zonder End. Cattle runs beyond it were still five or six thousand acres. Once beyond Swellendam, burghers treated placaats with contempt more easily than they did in Table Valley. The sixteenth year’s new landdrost inherited that distance, that pontoon, and that hamlet. He did not inherit a town. [3] [4] [7]
During the administration of Mr. Tulbagh the natives gave very little trouble to the colonists. Khoikhoi clans that still held together in compact bodies within the limits of the European settlement retained their own government, though their chiefs were practically appointed by the Dutch authorities. Only when Europeans or slaves were also concerned were they made amenable to colonial law. The greater number had lost old tribal distinctions. Many lived as dependents of farmers, or wandered and took service as they felt disposed. There were instances of harsh and unjust treatment, especially on the remote border; but the courts of law were open for their protection, and heavy sentences recorded against European criminals in such cases prove that the law was not a dead letter. Land was allotted to colonists without consulting them. As yet there was plenty of land left for them and their cattle. The government was anxious to prevent Khoikhoi from becoming possessed of guns and horses. With San there were occasional contests. June 1764 had already written one on the Zak river: Jacob van Reenen’s European servant murdered, three hundred sheep driven off, Gerrit van Wyk’s commando shooting twenty-five and taking ten children as servants, only sixty-three sheep recovered. Mentz’s first months inherited that aftermath, not a new stroke. The children were already distributed. The sheep were already gone. The border remained a place where a field corporal could still raise a commando. [3]
Huguenot surnames still sat the valleys that sold into the same bay. Philippe Jacob Naudé of Berlin, son of the Rev. Roger David Naudé, professor at the French College and minister of the French church at Berlin, had arrived here in 1754 in the Company’s service, and in 1766 received his discharge and went to reside at Drakenstein. The same year his father, Roger David, 1694–1766, died in Berlin. A Company servant took a burgher’s discharge in the year a Berlin minister’s line closed there and opened a Drakenstein household here. Serrurier of Hanau still preached in Dutch in Table Valley, married since November 1760 to Margaretha Elisabeth Timmendorf. Le Sueur still sat Stellenbosch. Mentz sat Swellendam. Discharge and a new landdrost were both sixteenth-year names: one a Huguenot leaving the service for Drakenstein, one a district secretary taking the service at a hamlet. [3] [8]
Church, Drostdies, and Civic Works — 1766
The various churches in the colony were well supplied with clergymen during the administration of Mr. Tulbagh. At the Cape, Kroonenburg, Bode, and Serrurier of Hanau were all in active service, as the directors had ordered in April 1761 after Bode’s suspension and restoration with arrears. Appeldoorn still sat Stellenbosch, where he had been stationed since October 1753. Van der Spuy still sat Drakenstein, having gone there at his own request in January 1758. Croeser still sat Zwartland, having exchanged with Voltelen in November 1755. Harders still sat Waveren, made permanent there by the directors in 1761 after commissioner Looten had taken him off a ship in January 1758. Combined consistories had ceased in 1759 because the council considered that the meetings served no useful purpose and that the travelling charges of clergymen and elders were burdens too heavy for the congregations. The sixteenth year inherited that saving. It did not restore the combined meetings. Three pulpits in Table Valley, one at Stellenbosch, one at Drakenstein, one at Zwartland, and one at Roodezand, were enough. [3] [8]
The village of Stellenbosch was considerably enlarged and improved in appearance during this period. On the 31st of October 1762 the drostdy buildings had been destroyed by fire, but they were shortly rebuilt in a handsomer style. Le Sueur sat that handsomer drostdy through the sixteenth year, as he had sat it since August 1763. Swellendam remained a mere hamlet, now with Mentz in Horak’s chair. The two outer chairs therefore did change in 1766, at Swellendam only. The inner chairs changed in April: Van Oudtshoorn gone, Cloppenburg acting, Hemmy acting. Kirsten still sat Simon’s Town. Continuity of persons, which had been the civic fact of the fifteenth year, was the civic fact of the sixteenth only until April and December wrote new names. [3] [9]
During the 21 years 1751–1771 there put into Table Bay 988 ships belonging to the Dutch East India Company, 168 English, 147 French, 31 Danish, 13 Swedish, 4 Prussian, 1 Portuguese, and 1 Spanish. During the same period 129 Dutch, 14 English, 11 French, 13 Danish, and 2 Swedish put into Simon’s Bay. The whole number that touched at the two ports was 1,472, and the average yearly number 70. The Prussian flag had first been seen on a ship in Table Bay in 1755, and the Swedish in 1759. Foreigners obtained whatever they chose to pay for, excepting when the council thought it necessary to prohibit the sale of such articles as the Company needed and of which the supply was insufficient for all. The sixteenth year sat inside that average after a fifteenth that had hardly any harvest. A paying roadstead did not require a named drought year to stay a paying roadstead. Seventy ships a year still needed beef, wine, water, and a hospital ward that, in July, threw its bedsteads against the walls. [3] [9]
Strangers had begun to know the town in Table Valley by the name of Cape Town, though by the colonists it was still termed the Cape. Several new streets were laid out. The parade ground was again levelled, and an oak hedge was planted round it. The artificial fountains from which the inhabitants got water were renewed. The town house—the same that is still in use—was built by the burgher council. The fortifications were repaired, and a new battery was constructed near the mouth of Salt River. The hospital in Table Valley was falling to ruins; materials were being collected for a new one, but the work was not yet commenced. The Wapen Pleyn no longer sounded only with militia drill. The Caabse Vlek was changing toward a name that strangers already used. Completing a hospital at Simon’s Town the year before, and feeling a slight earthquake in its wards in July, was the same civic energy pointed at the winter bay. Not only in town, but in the country districts, the impact of Tulbagh’s energy was felt. Simonstown was enlarged. Stellenbosch had already been expanded after the drostdy fire of October 1762. The sixteenth year sat those works under a governor whose life had been despaired of, and who had rallied. [3] [9]
North and south the year stretched the colony’s need and then shook a wall: in February the Cape packet Meermin, sent to Madagascar in 1765 for one hundred and forty people of both sexes, rose on the 18th, killed twenty-four of the watch, was deceived into Agulhas, and went to pieces, one hundred and twelve slaves finally reaching the Cape; in April Van Oudtshoorn went to Europe on leave and Cloppenburg was chosen to act as secunde, Hemmy to act as fiscal; in the same calendar Tulbagh’s life was despaired of, and he rallied without his former strength; a little before two in the morning of the 14th of July a slight earthquake ran through the peninsula with a noise like rolling thunder, throwing the bedsteads in the Simon’s Town hospital against the walls of the wards; in December Horak retired from the Company’s service and became a burgher, and Mentz, previously secretary of the district, was appointed landdrost of a hamlet still reached by the Breede pontoon. In the Republic William V came of age as Stadholder. At Drakenstein, Philippe Jacob Naudé took his discharge. Under Tulbagh, 1766 was not a year of conquest but of a wrecked slaving packet, an acting second chair, a governor who almost died, a slight shock at two in the morning, and a new name at Swellendam—while farmers still sold into the fleets of two empires at a neutral tavern of the seas, except when the Castle took first. The sixteenth year closed with cash in the bay, Cloppenburg acting, Hemmy acting, Le Sueur in a handsomer drostdy, Mentz at the hamlet, Kirsten still styled resident at a winter port whose new hospital had felt the shock, and Tulbagh still in the first chair, rallied, without his former strength. The gardens of 1652 were a hundred and fourteen years behind. The boom still paid. The irons had come off. [3] [4] [7] [8] [9]