Boer History1770 at the Cape of Good Hope: Bruintjes Hoogte Boundary, Cloppenburg’s Death, Croeser, and a Spanish Warship
Twentieth Year: Castle Continuity — 1770
Calendar 1770 opened in the twentieth 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; March 1767 had raised him ordinary councillor, with only the governor-general and the director-general above him out of Europe. The nineteenth year had closed with a January commando that surrounded a San party in the Bokkeveld, an April end to the Danish remainder, a June landdrost at Stellenbosch, a December line along the Zwartberg, and a Christmas shipment of horses to Madras. The twentieth opened with the same inner chairs, and with one outer chair already new: Jan Willem Cloppenburg still sat the second chair as secunde; Joachim van Plettenberg still sat the fiscal’s pen, a Friesland baron with Cornelia Charlotte Feith; Lucas Sigismundus Faber sat Stellenbosch, having taken it from Le Sueur in June 1769; Joachim Frederik Mentz sat the hamlet that Horak had left; Jan Frederik Kirsten sat the winter port with the title of resident, with a stone pier. The Castle’s ordinary business—open access, fixed fees, no private trading by officers—was a twentieth 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. 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. 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 twentieth year tested that strength on an 18 February boundary that named Bruintjes Hoogte and the Gamtoos, on a May commando after Casper Scholtz lost thirty-four head, on the 30th of May when the second chair emptied, on a May pulpit at Zwartland that emptied with it, on a Spanish man-of-war that was refused everything but water and fuel, and on a rixdollar that the supreme authorities cut from two and a half gulden to 2⅖—while a governor already sixty-eight, often tied to his bed, still sat the first chair as ordinary councillor, without his former strength. [3] [7] [9]
Continuity of persons was the point of the twentieth year’s opening as much as novelty of a named hill, a named river, and an emptied second chair. The same castle, the same boards, and many of the same officers remained—Cloppenburg still confirmed when January opened, Plettenberg in his third Cape calendar, Faber in his first full year at Stellenbosch. 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 when the year opened. 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 twentieth 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 1770. 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. The twentieth year therefore still lived inside two shadows: the 1755 graves, and the Danish infection of 1767 that had attacked between eighteen and nineteen hundred persons and had killed 179 Europeans, 145 free blacks, and 251 slaves. Occasional cases had run through the summer of 1767–8. It was not until April 1769 that the disease quite disappeared. Public as well as private enterprise had slackened. 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, often tied to his bed. A confirmed secunde sat the second when January opened. A fiscal independent sat the high court in his third Cape calendar. A landdrost of one Cape winter sat Stellenbosch. A landdrost of four sat the hamlet. A resident sat the winter port. The twentieth year inherited a closed pox, a named mountain, and a Christmas remount, and it opened a named hill, a named river, an emptied second chair, and a cemetery between the Lion’s Rump and the shore. [3] [7] [9]
Outward, the land regime did not change until 18 February named two limits. 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 1770 added no second Beutler-scale trek and no second Hop caravan. What it added was an 18 February line at Bruintjes Hoogte and the Gamtoos, a May commando under Van Jaarsveld, a 30 May vacancy in the second chair, a May vacancy at Zwartland, a Spanish man-of-war refused stores, a rixdollar cut by four per cent, and a cemetery opened between the Lion’s Rump and the bay. In the Republic, Prince William V had already come of age in 1766 and sat as Stadholder. The Cape still sat under the Seventeen and a governor already ordinary councillor. 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 twentieth year sat after a fifteenth that had hardly any harvest and had bought rice to compensate, and after a sixteenth and seventeenth that had not been named among the drought years of the twenty-one. Those named years were 1755, 1756, 1763, 1764, and 1771; 1765 had continued that dryness. 1770 was not among the years then described as drought. The Castle still sat inside the average, with a paying roadstead that did not pause for a named hill, a named river, or an emptied second chair. Huguenot valleys of Drakenstein, Franschhoek, and Val du Charron still sent fruit and grain toward Table Valley; graziers who had crossed the Witsenberg into the Warm Bokkeveld still sat the stock that May commandos rode after. [3] [4] [7]
Bruintjes Hoogte and the Gamtoos — 18 February 1770
In December 1769 a commission consisting of Lucas Sigismundus Faber, landdrost of Stellenbosch, Joachim Frederik Mentz, landdrost of Swellendam, two heemraden from each court, and the two secretaries, had been directed to lay down a permanent boundary between the two districts. The Zwartberg range was settled upon as a good dividing line, the country to the north being allotted to Stellenbosch, and that to the south to Swellendam. The commission was also required to inspect the most distant farms and ascertain the state of affairs on the frontier. They reported that they found between the Gamtoos and Fish rivers many persons with large herds of cattle, who were not paying rent to the Company, and others who were paying for a farm within the colonial limits, but who were moving about with their cattle wherever they pleased. They had reason also to believe that notwithstanding the placaat of the 8th of December 1739, which prohibited the purchase of cattle from natives, a large trade with the Xhosa was being carried on, for they found a well-beaten waggon-road from Swellendam into Xhosa country. That report sat on the Castle table when January opened. It was not yet a named hill. It was a commission’s paper, waiting for a council day. [3]
The council of policy therefore resolved—18th of February 1770—that on the northern or Stellenbosch side of the Zwartberg and the corresponding range further eastward the colonial boundary should be the hills known as Bruintjes Hoogte, that on the southern or Swellendam side it should be the Gamtoos river, that all persons then beyond these limits should be called upon to return to the colonial side, that all cattle found away from farms held on lease as well as all found in possession of nomads should be forfeited to the Company, and that landdrosts who neglected to prevent such irregularities should be dismissed and declared incapable of serving the Company. The Gamtoos was declared the extreme limit of the colony on the Swellendam road. Bruintjes Hoogte was declared the extreme limit on the Stellenbosch road. The two names were the February answer to a December paper. They were not a conquest. They were a recall. [3] [4]
The February settlement thus translated a commission’s finding into a placaat. Persons with large herds between the Gamtoos and the Fish, paying no rent, were to come back. Persons who paid for a farm within the colonial limits but moved about wherever they pleased were to sit the farm they paid for, or lose the cattle found away from it. Nomads’ cattle were to be the Company’s. Landdrosts who let that paper sleep were to lose the chair and the right to sit another. Faber had been in the commission that wrote the paper. Mentz had been in it. The two outer chairs were therefore not strangers to the line they were now to keep. The inner chairs—Tulbagh in the first, Cloppenburg in the second, Plettenberg at the fiscal’s pen—put their names to a recall that the outward districts had already shown they could ignore. Placaats forbidding a further eastern move had been ignored once beyond Swellendam. The well-beaten waggon-road into Xhosa country was the proof. February named two limits. It did not close the road. [3] [4]
The eastern note of the year was therefore a named limit, not a named war. Dirk Marx had already reported Xhosa as far west as the Great Fish. The December commission had found a trade the 1739 placaat had forbidden. The February council did not send a second Beutler. It sent a recall. All persons then beyond Bruintjes Hoogte and the Gamtoos were to return to the colonial side. The hills and the river were to be the edge. Cattle found away from leased farms were to be the Company’s, and so were cattle in nomads’ hands. That was the paper. The farms already beyond it were the fact. The twentieth year sat both: a named edge on the Castle table, and unpaid herds still between the Gamtoos and the Fish until a landdrost rode out to fetch them. Mentz’s hamlet remained a hamlet. Faber’s drostdy remained a handsomer building beside a moved river. The line between them remained the Zwartberg. The line beyond them became two names. [3] [4]
North of the Zwartberg the Stellenbosch district now ran to Bruintjes Hoogte. South of it the Swellendam district now ran to the Gamtoos. The corresponding range further eastward was named with the hills. The council did not name the Fish. It named the hills and the river that the commission had already walked. A well-beaten waggon-road from Swellendam into Xhosa country remained the eastern rumour of a trade the placaat of 1739 had made illegal. February did not unmake the road. It made the road a trespass with a penalty: cattle forfeited, landdrosts dismissed, persons called back. The twentieth year therefore opened its first council novelty not with a new drostdy and not with a new pulpit, but with two place-names written as a boundary. The gardens of 1652 had not needed those names. The outward cattle runs of five or six thousand acres had walked toward them until a December commission found men already beyond, and an 18 February sitting wrote the edge. [3] [4]
Scholtz Raid and Van Jaarsveld — May 1770
In May 1770 some San drove off thirty-four head of cattle from the farm of Casper Scholtz on the Salt river, between the later villages of Beaufort West and Murraysburg. Adriaan van Jaarsveld, a man whose name was afterwards to be well known throughout South Africa, was then field corporal of that part of the country. He mustered a commando, followed the San, and shot six of them, the others managing to escape. The cattle were found dead. The commando, before dispersing, came across a party of San in the act of lifting the cattle of David van Heerden. They shot two, and made prisoners of the others, who were afterwards distributed as servants. The May work was therefore not a blank three weeks. It was a field corporal who found the party, shot six, lost the cattle to death, and then found another party in the act, shot two, and took the rest. Van Jaarsveld’s name sat the May paper as Koekemoer’s name had sat the winter of 1768 and the January of 1769. The twentieth year gave the northern frontier a corporal who did not search three weeks without success. [3]
Later in the same year many of the farms along both sides of the Roggeveld and Nieuwveld mountains were plundered by San, and three servants of Barend Lubbe, Cornelis van Wyk, and Willem van Zyl were murdered. The field corporals assembled their forces, hunted up the plunderers, and shot a good many, the exact number not being given. Some of the cattle were recovered, and for a time it was hoped that there would be no more depredations. About the year 1770, cattle thefts and massacres of native herdsmen, and even of white colonists, became events of such frequent occurrence that all the farms scattered along the base of the eastern end of the Nieuwveld mountains and the Sneeuwberg and Winterberg ranges were unsafe. The May raid on Scholtz and the later murders on Lubbe, Van Wyk, and Van Zyl were that frequency written as names. The Castle received a closed account for May—six shot, cattle dead, two more shot, prisoners taken—and an open account for the later year, a good many shot, the exact number not given, some cattle recovered, a hope of quiet that the paper itself did not yet close. [3] [7]
Under Tulbagh the natives gave very little trouble to the colonists in the old districts. 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 their old tribal distinctions and recognised no chief of their own race. Many lived as dependents of farmers, or wandered about the country, taking service occasionally as they felt so disposed. These were of necessity amenable to colonial law even in matters affecting their relationship to each other. There were instances of harsh and unjust treatment of Khoikhoi by colonists, especially on the remote border; but the courts of law were open for their protection, and the heavy sentences recorded against European criminals in such cases prove that the law was not a dead letter. The government, being popular, was strong; oppression on any large scale could only take place in times of anarchy. Land was allotted to colonists without consulting them. As yet there was plenty of land left for them and their cattle, so that this question was not a pressing one. The May work sat outside that old-district peace. It sat on the Salt river, on the Roggeveld, on the Nieuwveld—where a field corporal’s commando was the court that arrived first. [3] [4]
The January 1769 work had been the winter raid finished in summer, by a commando that did not wait three weeks. The May 1770 work was a new farm, a new corporal, and a number that was not the whole. Scholtz lost thirty-four. Six San were shot; the others escaped; the cattle were found dead. Van Heerden’s cattle were being lifted when the same commando came on the party. Two were shot; the others were made prisoners and distributed as servants, on the same ground that the Zak-river commando of 1764 had given for taking children: that those whose parents were killed would perish if left, and that those who had relatives would become robbers if not removed. The later year on the Roggeveld and Nieuwveld did not name a count. A good many were shot. Three servants were murdered. Some cattle were recovered. The hope of quiet was written as a hope, not as a close. About 1770 the farms along the eastern Nieuwveld, the Sneeuwberg, and the Winterberg sat inside that frequency. Van Jaarsveld’s May paper was the first Cape calendar in which that corporal’s name sat a commando that found its party. [3] [7]
The government was anxious to prevent the Khoikhoi from becoming possessed of guns and horses, as many of those who accompanied the elephant hunters in their expeditions had learned to be expert marksmen, and might prove dangerous to the peace of the colony if mounted and armed. In 1755 some Khoikhoi in the district of Swellendam had acquired several horses and a couple of muskets as wages from burghers, when the landdrost was instructed to endeavour to procure the forbidden property in a friendly way in exchange for something else, and strictly to prohibit such actions in future. That instruction still sat in the twentieth year. It did not sit the May commando. Van Jaarsveld’s men were mounted. The San they followed were not. Thirty-four head dead on the Salt river, six shot, two more shot at Van Heerden’s lift, prisoners distributed, and later a good many shot on the Roggeveld and Nieuwveld after three servants were murdered: that was the northern account of a year whose eastern account was a named hill and a named river. The old districts still gave very little trouble. The outward runs still seemed to leave land enough. The twentieth year sat both sentences on the same Castle table. [3] [7]
Cloppenburg Dies — 30 May 1770
On the 30th of May 1770 Jan Willem Cloppenburg died. The principal offices at the time were filled by men whose chairs had already been acting chairs once. In April 1766 the secunde Van Oudtshoorn had gone to Europe on leave of absence to attend to his private affairs, when the fiscal Cloppenburg was chosen to act for him, and Otto Luder Hemmy was directed to act as fiscal. In March 1767 a despatch from the directors was received, announcing that Van Oudtshoorn had resigned, that Cloppenburg was to succeed as secunde, and that Joachim van Plettenberg—then a member of the high court of justice at Batavia—was appointed fiscal. On the 21st of December of the same year Plettenberg arrived in South Africa. The second chair had therefore been Cloppenburg’s by confirmation for three Cape winters when May emptied it. The fiscal’s pen had been Plettenberg’s for two Cape winters and a half. The twentieth year did not wait for a despatch to fill the second chair. The council directed Plettenberg to act as secunde until the directors could make their wishes known. [3] [9]
He was also to perform the most important duties of fiscal, but his assistant, Olof Godlieb de Wet, was to relieve him of the routine work of the office. The directors had not yet expressed their pleasure. Two chairs therefore sat in one man after the 30th of May: the second chair acting, and the fiscal’s pen in its important duties, with De Wet on the routine. Plettenberg had been twenty-eight when he landed, a Friesland baron, Hendrik Casimir’s son by Agatha Petronella van Ammema, given his mother’s surname as a second Christian name, Utrecht law, Adjunct-Fiscal to Batavia at twenty-five on the Amerongen in May 1764, married in 1767 to the widow of Louis Taillefer, Director of Bengal. That same year, 1767, had seen the Van Plettenbergs at the Cape. The twentieth year saw the baron in the second chair as well as at the fiscal’s pen, not by a directors’ despatch but by a council minute after Cloppenburg’s death. Both being courteous men, Tulbagh and Plettenberg had sat the Castle together without a recorded quarrel. The duties of an independent fiscal had been confined to legal matters. Acting secunde was not confined to legal matters. The 30th of May moved the baron from a pen that did not step on the first chair’s toes to a second chair that sat beside it until the Seventeen wrote. [3] [9]
Cloppenburg’s Cape years had been eight and a half. He had arrived in September 1762 as fiscal independent, in the same calendar as the Stellenbosch drostdy fire of the 31st of October. He had sat the fiscal’s pen through Lynn’s January 1762 refusal of English seamen, through the droughts of 1763 and 1764, through the Meermin, through the July 1766 earthquake, through Mentz’s taking of Swellendam, through the Danish smallpox, through Plettenberg’s landing, through the March 1768 peace, through the Stellenbosch flood, through Faber’s June 1769 promotion, through the Zwartberg commission, through the Christmas horses. From April 1766 he had acted as secunde; from March 1767 he had been confirmed. The twentieth year took that confirmed chair on the 30th of May and did not wait for Batavia or Amsterdam to name a successor. It named the fiscal already in the Castle. Continuity of persons, which had been the civic fact of the nineteenth year after June had changed only the Stellenbosch signature, was the broken fact of the twentieth after May had changed the second chair. Faber still sat Stellenbosch. Mentz still sat the hamlet. Kirsten still sat the winter port. Tulbagh still sat the first chair, sixty-eight, often tied to his bed. The second chair sat acting in Plettenberg’s name. [3] [9]
The inner chairs of May were therefore a first chair that had not changed since February 1751, and a second chair that had changed twice in four years—Van Oudtshoorn to Cloppenburg acting, Cloppenburg confirmed, Cloppenburg dead, Plettenberg acting—and a fiscal’s pen that had gone from Hemmy acting to Plettenberg confirmed to Plettenberg acting-and-fiscal with De Wet on the routine. That was still the condition of the senior offices when the year closed, for the directors had not yet expressed their pleasure. The twentieth year did not receive a new secunde from the Seventeen. It received a death on the 30th of May and a council minute the same week. The father of the country still sat the first chair. The baron sat the second until Amsterdam wrote. De Wet sat the routine of the high court. The Castle’s ordinary business—open access, fixed fees, no private trading—did not pause for an emptied chair. It sat an acting one. [3] [9]
Croeser Dies — May 1770
In May 1770 the Rev. Gerhardus Croeser died. The various churches in the colony had been well supplied with clergymen during the administration of Mr. Tulbagh. When he became governor, Van der Spuy had been alone at the Cape, Stellenbosch vacant, Van Echten at Drakenstein, Meyring at Waveren, Voltelen at Zwartland. In October 1752 Hendrik Kroonenburg had arrived from Europe and been stationed at the Cape. In January 1753 Van der Spuy had been transferred to Drakenstein at his own request. In September 1754 Croeser had arrived from Europe and been inducted as assistant pastor. In November 1755, under an arrangement between themselves of which the government approved, Croeser had gone to Zwartland and Voltelen had come to the Cape. From that November until this May, Croeser had sat Zwartland. Fifteen years and a half. The twentieth year took that pulpit in the same month that it took the second chair. [3]
No successor was named from the Netherlands in the year he died. The three clergymen of the Cape were required by the council of policy to hold service at Zwartland monthly in succession. Kroonenburg, Bode, and Serrurier of Hanau therefore added a monthly ride to a congregation that had had its own man since 1755. They were all in active service, as the directors had ordered in April 1761 after Bode’s suspension and restoration with arrears: Serrurier inducted as third clergyman of the Cape, Bode to resume as second and be paid his arrear salary, and upon the first death or removal of either Kroonenburg, Bode, or Serrurier, no successor to be appointed. That order had not yet been triggered. The three still sat Table Valley. The May death was not one of the three. It was Zwartland’s man. The council did not wait for a fourth Cape clergyman. It sent the three, month about, to the congregation Croeser had left. [3] [8]
Appeldoorn still sat Stellenbosch, where he had been stationed since October 1753. Van der Spuy still sat Drakenstein. 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 twentieth year inherited that saving. It did not restore the combined meetings. It added a monthly succession to Zwartland. Three pulpits in Table Valley, one at Stellenbosch, one at Drakenstein, one at Roodezand, and a Zwartland pulpit served from the Cape, were the May settlement. Serrurier of Hanau, married on the 9th of November 1760 to Margaretha Elisabeth Timmendorf, still sat the Cape pulpit as third clergyman, and now sat Zwartland one month in three. [3] [8]
May therefore emptied two Cape chairs that were not the first. The second chair of the Castle and the pulpit of Zwartland fell in the same calendar month. The council filled the one with the fiscal already in the house, and filled the other with a monthly succession of the three who already sat Table Valley. No new man arrived from Europe for either vacancy in 1770. Continuity of persons, broken in the second chair and at Zwartland, was patched from within. Plettenberg doubled. Kroonenburg, Bode, and Serrurier rode. De Wet took the fiscal’s routine. The congregations paid no combined-consistory travelling charges, and Zwartland paid a monthly wait for a Cape clergyman instead of a resident one. The twentieth year’s church paper was a death, a succession, and a saving already eleven years old. [3] [8]
Spanish Warship and the Rixdollar — 1770
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 was first seen on a ship in Table Bay in 1755, and the Swedish in 1759. The Spanish ship touched here in 1770. According to the treaties of Münster and Utrecht, the Spaniards were prohibited from sending vessels to India by the way of the Cape of Good Hope. The government therefore refused to allow the captain of this ship, which was a man-of-war, to procure any supplies except water and fuel. The other 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. [3] [9]
The Spanish man-of-war was therefore the only Spanish caller in the twenty-one-year tally, and the only ship in that tally refused stores as a matter of treaty rather than of magazine. English visitors had been treated in a liberal manner since the 1761 instructions, after the Chinsurah affair of 1759 had briefly disturbed the friendly feeling between Great Britain and the United Provinces. Lynn in the Chatham and York in January 1762 had been refused English seamen out of Dutch ships; Clive in the Kent in December 1764 and again in April 1767 had been received with all possible honour. Intelligence of peace between France and England had been received in March 1768 and had ended the provision boom that, from the French refreshment fleets of December 1758 and January 1759 until that March, had doubled and trebled prices and emptied magazines of surplus wheat. The Spanish ship of 1770 was not Clive’s Kent and not the Duke of Kingston of Christmas 1769. It was a man-of-war under a flag the treaties of Münster and Utrecht had shut out of the India voyage by way of the Cape. Water and fuel were not a slight. They were the treaty. The tavern of the seas still sold to those the treaties allowed, except when the Castle took first. [3] [9]
In the same year the supreme authorities issued instructions that the rixdollar was to be valued at 2⅖ gulden of Holland, equal to four shillings English money, instead of two and a half gulden or four shillings and two pence. The rixdollar of the records had been computed at 50d. before 1770 and at 48d. after that date. Sellers of Constantia and other contract wines had to bear a four per cent loss on the difference of exchange. From 1736 to 1761 the price paid by the Company for red Constantia wine had been £20 16s. 8d. and for white Constantia wine £10 8s. 4d. the legger, the proprietors of the farms into which the original estate was divided being obliged under an old contract to sell at that price. But as they could easily get double those sums from foreigners, they were loud in complaining, and in 1761 an agreement was made with Jacobus van der Spuy, then owner of High Constantia, that he should deliver to the Company two-thirds of all the red wine made by him at a raised price, and two-thirds of all the white wine, he to be at liberty to sell the remaining third to whom he chose at the best price which he could obtain. A similar agreement was subsequently made with Lambert Myburgh, owner of Great Constantia. The 1770 instruction did not unmake those thirds. It cut the rixdollar in which the agreements were made. The prices named had to be reduced by four per cent after that date, for the sellers had to bear the loss. [3]
Before 1770 there had been no attempt to rectify another evil in the grain accounts: the fictitious gulden reckoned at sixteen stivers when paying a Cape farmer, giving the officer in charge of the granaries a perquisite of four per cent. The twentieth year’s rixdollar instruction was not that perquisite. It was a supreme-authority cut of the dollar itself, from 50d. to 48d., from two and a half gulden of Holland to 2⅖. Four per cent sat both papers—the old granary perquisite and the new exchange loss—but only one of them was a 1770 order. Contract wine felt it. Ordinary wine to Europe, rather over 100 leggers a year, and Constantia, usually not more than 14 or 15 leggers, sat inside that cut. Wheat, rye, barley, peas, beans, and butter to India sat the average of the twenty-one years and did not pause for a Spanish man-of-war or a revalued dollar. The Castle still bought butter at six pence to eight pence a pound, and occasionally in times of scarcity as much as a shilling. 1770 was not a named drought year. It was a named dollar year. [3]
To Europe were sent yearly rather over 100 leggers of common wine and as much Constantia wine as could be obtained. In 1761 the first aloes had been exported from South Africa, two hundred and eighteen pounds by the old burgher councillor Petrus Johannes de Wit; from that date it was an article of export to Europe, but the quantity in demand being inconsiderable, it was not of much advantage to the colony. The first horses had been exported on the 25th of December 1769 in the Duke of Kingston for Madras. The twentieth year did not add a second horse ship to that Christmas list. It added a Spanish man-of-war that took water and fuel, and a rixdollar that took four per cent from the Constantia contract. Foreigners still obtained whatever they chose to pay for, excepting when the council prohibited what the Company needed. Spaniards did not. Münster and Utrecht sat the jetty before the tavern did. Seventy ships a year still needed beef, wine, water, a hospital ward, and a stone pier at the winter bay. One of the seventy, in this year, needed only water and fuel. [3] [9]
Church, Cemetery, and Civic Works — 1770
During the period that Governor Tulbagh was at the head of the colony, the town in Table Valley was considerably enlarged, and strangers began to know it by its present 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 tower of the church was raised a few feet higher by the consistory, and a clock was placed in it, which did not yet indicate the time. The graveyard round the church was closed, and early in 1770 the cemetery between the Lion’s Rump and the shore of the bay was opened for use. The hospital was falling to ruins, and it had been resolved by the directors to build a new one, but the work was not yet commenced, though the materials were being collected. The fortifications were repaired, and a new battery was constructed near the mouth of Salt River. The Wapen Pleyn was once more levelled and provided with a hedge of oak trees. The whole aspect of the Caabse Vlek changed rapidly, and the name Kaapstad did not sound euphemistic any longer. Early 1770 therefore sat a new burying ground as the civic fact that 1769 had still written as not yet opened. [3] [9]
At Simon’s Town expensive works had already been carried out. The hospital—a square building of 130 feet frontage—had been commenced in 1760 and completed in 1765. Substantial storehouses had then been put up, and when these were finished, in 1768 a stone pier had been constructed. A slaughter house, a bakery, workshops for smiths and carpenters, and a dwelling house for the officer in charge of the station had followed. The building erected in the time of Governor Swellengrebel—450 feet in length and previously used for all purposes—was now used solely as quarters for the garrison and workmen. Kirsten still sat that station with the title of resident, as he had since May 1761. The twentieth year did not add a second pier. It sat the pier already there, and added in Table Valley a cemetery that the closed churchyard required, a battery at Salt River mouth, and materials stacked for a hospital the directors had resolved to build. Not only in town, but also in the country districts, the impact of Tulbagh’s energy was felt. Stellenbosch had already been expanded after the drostdy fire of October 1762, the river moved after May 1768, and from June 1769 a new landdrost seated in Faber’s handsomer building. Swellendam remained a mere hamlet, Mentz in Horak’s chair. [3] [9]
The various churches in the colony were well supplied with clergymen until May took Croeser. At the Cape, Kroonenburg, Bode, and Serrurier of Hanau were all in active service. Appeldoorn still sat Stellenbosch. Van der Spuy still sat Drakenstein. Harders still sat Waveren. Combined consistories had ceased in 1759. The twentieth year inherited that saving and added a monthly succession to Zwartland. The clock in the raised tower still did not indicate the time. The graveyard round the church was closed. The cemetery between the Lion’s Rump and the shore was open. Materials for a new hospital were being collected; the work was not yet commenced. A new battery sat near Salt River mouth. The inner chairs had changed by one death: Cloppenburg’s, on the 30th of May, Plettenberg acting, De Wet on the routine. The outer chairs had not changed: Faber at Stellenbosch, Mentz at the hamlet, Kirsten at the winter port. Continuity of persons, which had been the civic fact of the nineteenth year after June had changed only the Stellenbosch signature, was the civic fact of the twentieth after May had changed the second chair and the Zwartland pulpit, and had left the rest sitting. [3] [8] [9]
During the 21 years 1751–1771 the average yearly number of ships at the two ports was 70. 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 excepting the Spanish man-of-war that Münster and Utrecht limited to water and fuel. The twentieth year sat inside that average after a March 1768 peace had ended the wartime bid and an April 1769 closing had ended the Danish remainder. A paying roadstead did not require a named drought year to stay a paying roadstead. Seventy ships a year still needed beef, wine, water, a hospital ward, a stone pier at the winter bay, and, in this year, a cemetery that the closed churchyard could no longer give. The tavern of the seas counted the Spanish refusal as it had counted the boom, the peace, and the Christmas horses. It did not count a second horse ship. It counted a revalued rixdollar, a named hill, a named river, and an emptied second chair. [3] [9]
North and south the year stretched the colony’s remainder, its bench, its mountain, its river, and its graves: on the 18th of February the council named Bruintjes Hoogte on the Stellenbosch side of the Zwartberg and the Gamtoos on the Swellendam side, called persons beyond those limits back, forfeited cattle found away from leased farms and in nomads’ hands, and threatened landdrosts who neglected with dismissal; early in the year the cemetery between the Lion’s Rump and the shore of the bay was opened, the graveyard round the church having been closed, while materials were collected for a hospital not yet begun and a new battery rose near Salt River mouth; in May San drove off thirty-four head from Casper Scholtz on the Salt river, Van Jaarsveld mustered a commando, shot six, found the cattle dead, then shot two more lifting David van Heerden’s cattle and distributed the rest as servants; later in the year farms along both sides of the Roggeveld and Nieuwveld were plundered, three servants of Barend Lubbe, Cornelis van Wyk, and Willem van Zyl were murdered, and field corporals shot a good many, the exact number not given; on the 30th of May Cloppenburg died, and the council directed Plettenberg to act as secunde and to perform the most important duties of fiscal, De Wet taking the routine, the directors not yet having expressed their pleasure; in May Croeser died, and the three Cape clergymen were required to hold service at Zwartland monthly in succession; a Spanish man-of-war, the only Spanish caller in the twenty-one-year tally, was refused everything but water and fuel under the treaties of Münster and Utrecht; the supreme authorities valued the rixdollar at 2⅖ gulden of Holland, four shillings English, instead of two and a half gulden or four shillings and two pence, and Constantia sellers bore a four per cent loss. Under Tulbagh, 1770 was not a year of conquest but of a named edge, a named corporal, an emptied second chair, an emptied country pulpit, a refused flag, a cut dollar, and an opened cemetery—while farmers still sold into a quieter bay at a neutral tavern of the seas, except when the Castle took first, and except when the flag was Spanish. The twentieth year closed with Plettenberg acting in the second chair and at the fiscal’s important duties, De Wet on the routine, Faber in a handsomer drostdy beside a moved river, Mentz at the hamlet, Kirsten still styled resident at a winter port that had a stone edge, Kroonenburg, Bode, and Serrurier riding Zwartland month about, and Tulbagh still in the first chair, ordinary councillor, sixty-eight, often tied to his bed, without his former strength. The gardens of 1652 were a hundred and eighteen years behind. The named hill and the named river were the year’s edge. [3] [4] [7] [8] [9]