Boer History1771 at the Cape of Good Hope: Cook’s Call, Tulbagh’s Death, and Plettenberg Acting
Twenty-first Year: Castle Continuity — 1771
Calendar 1771 opened in the twenty-first 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; he had been a widower since October 1758 by the later count of the records. 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 twentieth year had closed with an 18 February line at Bruintjes Hoogte and the Gamtoos, a May commando after Casper Scholtz lost thirty-four head, 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. The twenty-first opened with the same first chair, and with the second already acting: Joachim van Plettenberg sat both the second chair and the important duties of fiscal, a Friesland baron with Cornelia Charlotte Feith; Olof Godlieb de Wet sat the fiscal’s routine; Lucas Sigismundus Faber sat Stellenbosch; 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 twenty-first 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. The directors had not yet expressed their pleasure on the second chair. January therefore opened on an acting settlement that May 1770 had written and that Amsterdam had not yet confirmed. [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. In it were pictures of De Ruyter, Tromp, and other illustrious persons in Holland. It was small and plain. The inhabitants did not pass his door without some mark of respect. 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 twenty-first year tested that strength on a March–April refreshment in Table Bay, on a poor drought crop, on an early-year commando that counted ninety-two dead, on a June occupation beyond Bruintjes Hoogte, and on an 11 August deathbed that emptied the first chair for the first time since February 1751. [3] [7] [9]
Continuity of persons was the point of the twenty-first year’s opening as much as novelty of a named visitor, a named hunter, and an emptied first chair still months away. The same castle, the same boards, and many of the same officers remained—Plettenberg acting in the second chair since May, De Wet on the routine, Faber in his second 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, and still held service at Zwartland monthly in succession, no successor having been named for Gerhardus Croeser. The Rev. Johannes Appeldoorn, stationed at Stellenbosch since October 1753, still sat that village in 1771. 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 twenty-first 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 1771. 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. The twenty-first 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, sixty-eight after the serious illness of a year previously, Councillor Ordinary of the Indies. An acting secunde sat the second. A fiscal’s pen sat in the same man for its important duties, with De Wet on the routine. A landdrost of two Cape winters sat Stellenbosch. A landdrost of five sat the hamlet. A resident sat the winter port. The twenty-first year did not change those outer chairs. It changed the first. [3] [7] [9]
Outward, the land regime did not change from the 18 February 1770 names. 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 1771 added no second Beutler-scale trek and no second Hop caravan. What it added was a March–April English circumnavigator in Table Bay, a French novelist of about six weeks, a poor drought crop, an early-year commando under Van Jaarsveld, a June occupation on the Little Fish, an 11 August death in the first chair, and a 25 November clock that at last indicated the time. 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—until August emptied that chair. Average exports across Tulbagh’s twenty-one years would 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 named drought years of those twenty-one were 1755, 1756, 1763, 1764, and 1771; 1765 had continued that dryness. 1771 was the last of the five. The Castle still sat inside the average, with a paying roadstead that did not pause for a named hunter or an emptied first 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 commandos rode after. [3] [4] [7]
Cook and St Pierre — March–April 1771
A visitor scarcely less eminent than Clive was Captain James Cook, who called at Table Bay in the Endeavour on his homeward passage, on the 15th of March 1771. After refreshing his crew and taking in a stock of provisions, he sailed again on the 14th of April. Thirty days in the roadstead. The tavern of the seas sold him what foreigners who were not Spanish were still allowed to buy: beef, wine, water, garden stuff, whatever he 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 Endeavour was not Clive’s Kent of December 1764 and April 1767, and not the Duke of Kingston of Christmas 1769. It was a homeward circumnavigator in the twenty-first year of a governor already ordinary councillor, often tied to his bed. The March–April call sat inside the average of seventy ships a year. It did not pause the drought. It did not empty a chair. It refreshed a crew and took in a stock, and on the 14th of April it sailed. [3] [9]
Bernardin de St Pierre, author of Paul et Virginie, also spent about six weeks at the Cape in 1771. His observations were the most detailed of the visitors who aired their opinion about the little colonial town. To his pen the Castle owed particulars of the governor’s mode of living and daily environment. The house distinguished only by the sentinel and the dinner trumpet; the canal shaded with chestnut trees planted before the door; the pictures of De Ruyter and Tromp; the small plain rooms suited to the very few people who had affairs to solicit; the inhabitants who did not pass the door without some mark of respect. The best policy, the governor once conveyed to him, was to deal justly and honestly with every man. Six weeks of a French novelist therefore sat the same year as thirty days of an English captain. Cook refreshed and sailed. St Pierre looked at a house and a canal and a sentinel, and wrote the landsfather as he still sat the first chair—before the winter emptied it. [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. The Spanish ship had 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 had therefore refused to allow the captain of that man-of-war any supplies except water and fuel. The other foreigners obtained whatever they chose to pay for, excepting when the council took first. Calendar 1771 closed that twenty-one-year tally. Cook’s Endeavour sat inside the 168 English of Table Bay. St Pierre sat inside the 147 French. Seventy ships a year still needed beef, wine, water, a hospital ward, and a stone pier at the winter bay. The twenty-first year counted the last of those seventy-a-year under the landsfather’s name. [3] [9]
Among persons of note that had called at the Cape during Tulbagh’s government, Lord Clive had touched here on the 17th of December 1764 in the Kent, remained ashore until the 12th of January 1765, and had arrived again on the 22nd of April 1767 on his return passage, lodging with the burgher Petrus Johannes de Wit and leaving on the 4th of May. The Abbé Nicolas Louis de la Caille, Louis de Bougainville, Andreas Sparrman, Charles Thunberg, Johan Splinter Stavorinus, and Professor Allemand of Leiden had also sat the tavern’s books. Of the English, Cook now sat the 1771 line. Of the French, St Pierre sat it with him. Clive’s first call had sent the gilded coach with six horses; his second had been a little less conspicuous; both had been met with quiet courtesy. Cook’s March–April call did not need a gilded coach to be a named visitor. It needed a roadstead, a magazine, and a governor still able, in March, to sit the first chair while a French novelist counted chestnut trees and a sentinel. [3] [9]
There were but few disasters on the coast at this period. The loss of the Doddington and the drifting ashore of the Meermin had already been written in earlier calendars. The twenty-first year added no named wreck to that short list. It added a homeward English captain and a French novelist of six weeks. The hospital in Table Valley was still falling to ruins, materials being collected, the work not yet commenced. Simon’s Town still sat the square hospital of 130 feet frontage completed in 1765, the stone pier of 1768, the slaughter house, the bakery, the workshops, the dwelling, and the old Swellengrebel building of 450 feet now used solely as quarters for the garrison and workmen. Kirsten still sat that station. Cook’s crew refreshed in Table Bay, not in the winter port. St Pierre’s six weeks looked at the Caabse Vlek that strangers had begun to know as Cape Town, though by the colonists it was still termed the Cape. Several new streets had been laid out. The parade ground had been levelled again, and an oak hedge planted round it. The artificial fountains had been renewed. The town house had been built by the burgher council. The tower of the church had been raised a few feet, and a clock placed in it that did not yet indicate the time. The graveyard round the church had been closed; the cemetery between the Lion’s Rump and the shore had been opened early in 1770. March and April of 1771 therefore sat a paying roadstead inside a town that had already changed its aspect, and inside a first chair that had not yet emptied. [3] [9]
A Poor Drought Crop — 1771
During the period 1st of January 1751 to 31st of December 1771 there were five years of drought, more or less severe, in the corn-growing districts. These years were 1755, 1756, 1763, 1764, and 1771. In 1755 the drought had been severe during the early months, and many cattle had died of starvation, but after June abundance of rain had fallen, and the corn crop had been a very good one. In 1756 the rain that fell had been insufficient for wheat, and only a poor crop had been gathered; there had been such a quantity in reserve, however, that as much as usual was exported. In 1763 not only had the drought been severe, but south-east gales had set in early and with such force as partly to destroy what wheat was growing, and a plague of caterpillars had followed, so that little or nothing was reaped. In 1765 the drought had continued, and there had been hardly any harvest; of the grain which remained in stock, a small quantity had been sent to India, but rice had been imported to compensate for it. In 1771 the drought was not very severe, though the crop gathered was poor. The twenty-first year was therefore the last of the five named years, and the mildest of them in the wording of the paper: not very severe, a poor crop. It was not 1763’s nothing. It was not 1765’s rice. It was a poor gathering in a year that still had to feed seventy ships and a town that strangers called Cape Town. [3]
During these twenty-one years the average quantity of farm produce exported to India was 11,791 muids of wheat, 202 muids of rye, 68 muids of barley, 202 muids of peas, 174 muids of beans, and 346 leggers of common wine. In 1754 butter had first been exported to India. During the next eighteen years the quantity sent abroad annually averaged 22,322 pounds. It was usually purchased at the Company’s stores at six pence to eight pence a pound, but occasionally in times of scarcity as much as a shilling a pound was paid for it. A small quantity of dried fruit and a little ivory were also exported to India. To Europe were sent yearly rather over 100 leggers of common wine and as much Constantia wine as could be obtained, which was usually not more than 14 or 15 leggers. The 1770 instruction had already valued the rixdollar at 2⅖ gulden of Holland, equal to four shillings English money, instead of two and a half gulden or four shillings and two pence. Sellers of Constantia and other contract wines had to bear a four per cent loss on the difference of exchange. The twenty-first year’s poor crop sat inside that cut dollar and inside that twenty-one-year average. It did not unmake the average. It named the last drought year of the landsfather’s count. [3]
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. In 1761 an agreement had been 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 had subsequently been made with Lambert Myburgh, owner of Great Constantia. The 1770 rixdollar instruction had not unmade those thirds. It had cut the dollar in which the agreements were made. The twenty-first year inherited that cut. 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 twenty-first year did not add a second horse ship to that Christmas list. It added a poor crop to a named drought year, and a paying roadstead that still bought butter at six pence to eight pence when it could. [3]
A poor crop in a year not very severe was still a crop. 1763 had reaped little or nothing. 1765 had bought rice. 1771 gathered poorly and still sat inside the average of 11,791 muids of wheat to India. Seventy ships a year still needed bread. The corn-growing districts still sat the named years of the twenty-one as a list that now closed: 1755, 1756, 1763, 1764, 1771. The Castle did not close the magazines. It counted a poor gathering in the same calendar as Cook’s thirty days, St Pierre’s six weeks, Van Jaarsveld’s ninety-two, Prinsloo’s two farms, and an 11 August death. The drought was not the year’s only paper. It was the year’s harvest paper. The first chair still sat it in the early months. The acting chairs sat it after August. [3]
Joubert, Van Jaarsveld, and Prinsloo — 1771
Early in 1771 the San mustered in force, laid siege to several houses, murdered three of Jacob Joubert’s servants, and drove off large herds of cattle. Adriaan van Jaarsveld determined upon giving the marauders a severe lesson. With thirty picked men, well mounted, he took the field, and did not return until he had counted ninety-two dead San. After that there was quietness for a short time. The early-year work was therefore not a blank three weeks. It was a field corporal who had already sat the May 1770 paper—six shot at Scholtz’s, cattle found dead, two more shot lifting David van Heerden’s cattle, the rest distributed as servants—and who now sat a number that the later 1770 Roggeveld–Nieuwveld paper had not given. Ninety-two. Thirty picked men. Several houses besieged. Three of Joubert’s servants murdered. Large herds driven off. Quietness for a short time after. The twenty-first year gave the northern frontier a count that May 1770 had not written. [3]
Later in 1770 many of the farms along both sides of the Roggeveld and Nieuwveld mountains had been plundered, and three servants of Barend Lubbe, Cornelis van Wyk, and Willem van Zyl had been murdered. The field corporals had assembled their forces, hunted up the plunderers, and shot a good many, the exact number not being given. Some of the cattle had been recovered, and for a time it had been hoped that there would be no more depredations. Early 1771 closed that hope. The San mustered in force. Several houses were laid under siege. Joubert lost three servants. Van Jaarsveld took thirty picked men. Ninety-two dead was the lesson the paper named. About the year 1770, cattle thefts and massacres of native herdsmen, and even of white colonists, had become 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 early 1771 siege and the ninety-two were that frequency written as a corporal’s return. The old districts still gave very little trouble. The outward runs still seemed to leave land enough. The twenty-first year sat both sentences on the same Castle table: a northern count, and an eastern occupation beyond the February line. [3] [7]
In June 1771 the elephant hunter Willem Prinsloo obtained permission from Governor Tulbagh to select two farms within the colonial limits. He went beyond them and occupied the later site of Somerset East, on the Little Fish river. The eastern boundary of the colony at this time was, according to the resolution of the council of policy of the 18th of February 1770, Bruintjes Hoogte and the Gamtoos river; but, in defiance of that prohibition, Europeans were already settled along the high lands as far as the Little Fish. Prinsloo was the first white man who made himself a home on the banks of that stream. The June paper was therefore not a new drostdy and not a new named hill. It was a permission for two farms inside the line, and an occupation outside it. Tulbagh still sat the first chair in June. He signed two farms within the limits. The hunter sat the Little Fish. The February recall of 1770 had named Bruintjes Hoogte and the Gamtoos and had called persons beyond those limits back. June 1771 sat a man who had not come back. [3] [4]
In 1770 the Gamtoos had been declared the extreme limit of the colony. In spite of this, the Boschberg, later the district of Somerset East, was invaded during the following year. Placaats were ineffectual in producing a retreat. Prinsloo’s June occupation was that invasion written as a name. Several others would follow him; the twenty-first year wrote the first home on the Little Fish. Cattle runs of five or six thousand acres, a yearly rental of £5 when it could be recovered, and a well-beaten waggon-road from Swellendam into Xhosa country had already sat the December 1769 commission’s paper. February 1770 had translated that paper into a recall. June 1771 sat the recall ignored. Faber still sat Stellenbosch, whose northern or Stellenbosch side of the Zwartberg now ran to Bruintjes Hoogte. Mentz still sat the hamlet, whose southern or Swellendam side ran to the Gamtoos. The hunter sat beyond both names. The first chair that signed his two farms inside the limits did not live to see a landdrost fetch him back. [3] [4]
In 1771 the tribes that inhabited the lower plateaux of the belt of country between the Kathlamba mountains and the sea were, first or adjoining the colony, the Xhosa, next the Tembus, following them the Pondos, the Pondomisis, and the Kesibes. Each of these was independent of all the others, and wars between them were not uncommon. Dirk Marx had already reported Xhosa as far west as the Great Fish. The December 1769 commission had found a trade the placaat of the 8th of December 1739 had forbidden. The February 1770 council had not sent a second Beutler. It had sent a recall. June 1771 sat a hunter on the Little Fish, on the later site of Somerset East, with two farms permitted inside a line he had crossed. The eastern note of the year was therefore a named occupation, not a named war. The northern note was a named count: ninety-two. The old districts still gave very little trouble. The courts were still open. Land was still allotted without consulting Khoikhoi clans. Plenty of land still seemed left—until a man who had permission for two farms inside the limits made himself a home on a river the council had not named as the edge. [3] [4]
Tulbagh Dies — 11 August 1771
Governor Tulbagh was regarded as a model officer by his superiors in Europe and India. In March 1755 he had been raised to councillor extraordinary of Netherlands India; in March 1767 he had been further elevated to ordinary councillor, with only two superiors out of Europe. In his declining years he was often laid upon a bed of sickness. In 1766 his life had been despaired of, but he had rallied, though he did not recover his former strength. By that time he was sixty-eight and, after a serious illness a year previously, often tied to his bed. At length, in the winter of 1771, he was prostrated by illness which he felt was to be his last, for to other ailments was now added a painful attack of gout in the feet. In May his condition deteriorated. For nearly three months he lay on what he himself knew to be his deathbed, patiently, never complaining, and slowly preparing himself for his last voyage with the thoroughness that had marked all his undertakings. His deathbed, on which he lay for eleven weeks, was one of patient suffering and contemplation of the hereafter. [3] [9]
In the afternoon of the 11th of August he appeared to be better than usual, but between five and six o’clock in the evening, without a struggle, his spirit passed away. He died at the age of seventy-two years and nearly three months. A quarter of a century earlier he had been surrounded by his wife’s relatives, who then formed a very numerous family. At the time of his death he had no nearer connection in South Africa than the three brothers Le Sueur, who were his wife’s nephews. The whole of the Swellengrebel family had moved to other countries or had died out. The governor had no children, and he had been a widower since October 1758. By will he left his property to his younger brother, Johannes Tulbagh, a retired captain of the national army, who was living at Bergen-op-Zoom, and to whom for a long time he had made an allowance of £200 a year. The first chair that had sat since the 27th of February 1751 emptied between five and six in the evening of the 11th of August, without a struggle, on a day that had seemed better than usual. [3]
He had been among the most popular of the Dutch Company’s rulers: a kind, homely, fatherly man, who had introduced various sumptuary laws whose object was to discourage and check luxurious living and improvidence among the colonists. He had never sought popularity for popularity’s sake. He had paid the 1751 property tax first, with Elizabeth, and the burghers had queued at the Castle still calling him Father Tulbagh. He had remained a quiet-living man when the 1755 sumptuary placaats cut ornate carriages, silks, and umbrellas. He had refused supplies to French ships that would not salute, and had answered Lynn’s demand for English sailors out of Dutch ships with a no. He had treated Clive’s insolence with quiet courtesy twice. He had authorised a building for Van Dessin’s 3,800 books. He had raised the Groote Kerk tower and placed a clock in it that still, on the 11th of August, did not indicate the time. He had not traded. He had not allowed officers to trade. His house had been distinguished only by the sentinel and the trumpet. The twenty-first year took that house’s occupant between five and six in the evening, aged seventy-two years and nearly three months, a childless widower, ordinary councillor, landsfather. [3] [7] [9]
The gardens of 1652 had not needed a landsfather of twenty-one years. The twenty-first year of that chair closed the count that had begun when a man not quite fifty-two took the oath on the 27th of February 1751. Twenty-one years of open access, fixed fees, no private trading, a gilded coach that was the governor’s because the placaat said so and not because he indulged, a tavern of the seas that sold to those the treaties allowed, a town that strangers had begun to call Cape Town, a cemetery opened early in 1770, a clock that still did not indicate the time, a poor drought crop, a March–April English captain, a French novelist of six weeks, a northern count of ninety-two, and a June hunter on the Little Fish. That was the paper the first chair left on the table when it emptied. The second chair was already acting. The fiscal’s important duties already sat in the same man. The directors had not yet expressed their pleasure. August did not wait for Amsterdam. [3] [9]
Plettenberg Acting — 12 August 1771
On the morning after Mr. Tulbagh’s death, the council of policy met to make provision for carrying on the government. The principal offices at the time were filled by men with only acting appointments. 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 had been 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 had arrived in South Africa. On the 30th of May 1770 Cloppenburg had died, and the council had then directed Plettenberg to act as secunde until the directors could make their wishes known. 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. This was the condition of matters at the time of Tulbagh’s death, for the directors had not yet expressed their pleasure. [3] [9]
The council decided that Plettenberg should act both as governor and secunde, and that the secretary, Olof Martini Bergh, should act also as fiscal until the supreme authorities could make new appointments. Two chairs therefore sat in one man after the 12th of August: the first chair acting, and the second still acting, with Bergh on the fiscal’s pen and De Wet no longer the only relief. Plettenberg had been educated as a lawyer, and had very little experience in any other employment. He had been born in Leeuwarden, the capital of Friesland, on the 8th of March 1739, 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 on the 8th of May 1764, arrived in the colonial capital on the second day of 1765, 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 twenty-first year saw the baron in the first chair as well as the second, not by a directors’ despatch but by a council minute the morning after the landsfather died. 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 governor was not confined to legal matters. The 12th of August moved the baron from a second chair that sat beside the first to the first chair itself, until Amsterdam wrote. [3] [9]
They then resolved to go into full mourning with their families for six weeks. The principal townspeople did the same. The funeral of the late governor was kept back till the 17th, to allow the country people to attend. On that day the town was filled as it never had been before, and with all the solemnity and state that was possible the remains of the landsfather were laid beneath the pavement of the church. At the special service in the Groote Kerk, Johannes Petrus le Sueur delivered a funeral oration. It was not much more than a brief enumeration of the deceased’s curriculum vitae without superlatives or other embellishment. He would not desecrate the place by idle and insipid flattery, from which the governor had been averse during his life. His Honour was above praise. The 17th of August was therefore not a quiet burial. It was a town filled as never before, six weeks of full mourning already resolved, a pavement opened, and an oration that refused to flatter a man who had not sought popularity for popularity’s sake. [3] [9]
Called to succeed a model governor, the acting head sat from the first moment at a disadvantage that a council minute could not unmake. He was the only senior executive in the settlement when Father Tulbagh died; the council of policy had no choice but to make him acting head of the government. Faber still sat Stellenbosch. Mentz still sat the hamlet. Kirsten still sat the winter port. Kroonenburg, Bode, and Serrurier of Hanau still sat the Cape pulpit three deep and Zwartland month about. Appeldoorn still sat Stellenbosch’s church. Van der Spuy still sat Drakenstein. Harders still sat Waveren. De Wet still sat a fiscal’s routine that Bergh now also sat as acting fiscal. Continuity of persons, which had been the civic fact of the twentieth year after May had changed the second chair and the Zwartland pulpit, was the civic fact of the twenty-first after August had changed the first chair and had left the rest sitting—under an acting name. The Castle’s ordinary business—open access, fixed fees, no private trading—had been the landsfather’s habit. The acting year inherited the habit and the empty chair. [3] [8] [9]
Church Clock and Civic Works — 25 November 1771
The tower of the church had been raised a few feet higher by the consistory, and a clock placed in it, which did not indicate the time until the 25th of November 1771. Many months of adjusting and revising had sat between the raising of the tower and the day the hands at last told the hour. The twenty-first year therefore closed its civic paper not with a new street and not with a new battery, but with a clock that had refused, through Cook’s thirty days, through St Pierre’s six weeks, through an 11 August death, through a 17 August pavement, and through six weeks of full mourning, to fulfil its primary duty—and that on the 25th of November at last indicated the time. The graveyard round the church had already been closed. Early in 1770 the cemetery between the Lion’s Rump and the shore of the bay had been opened for use. The landsfather lay under the pavement of the church, not in the new cemetery. The clock that had not indicated the time when he died indicated it fourteen weeks later. [3] [9]
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 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. 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 ground upon which the new hospital was to stand had been prepared before the death of Governor Tulbagh. It was designed for the accommodation of one thousand four hundred and fifty patients, with quarters for the medical officers and attendants, and spacious storehouses. November’s clock sat that prepared ground with the work not yet commenced. [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 twenty-first year did not add a second pier. It sat the pier already there, and added in Table Valley a clock that at last indicated the time, a pavement that held the landsfather, and a hospital ground prepared for 1,450 that still waited for a stone. Not only in town, but also in the country districts, the impact of Tulbagh’s energy had been 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 still well supplied with clergymen, save Zwartland. At the Cape, Kroonenburg, Bode, and Serrurier of Hanau were all in active service, and still held service at Zwartland monthly in succession, no successor having been appointed in 1771 for Croeser. 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, and still doing duty in 1771. Combined consistories had ceased in 1759. The twenty-first year inherited that saving and the monthly succession to Zwartland. Serrurier of Hanau, married on the 9th of November 1760 to Margaretha Elisabeth Timmendorf, still sat the Cape pulpit as third clergyman, and still sat Zwartland one month in three. The inner chairs had changed by one death: Tulbagh’s, on the 11th of August, Plettenberg acting as governor and secunde, Bergh acting as fiscal. 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 twentieth year after May had changed the second chair and the Zwartland pulpit, was the civic fact of the twenty-first after August had changed the first chair, and had left the rest sitting under an acting name, with a clock that from the 25th of November indicated the time. [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 of 1770 that Münster and Utrecht had limited to water and fuel. The twenty-first 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 clock that at last told the hour over a pavement that held the landsfather. Cook’s Endeavour counted as one of the 168 English of Table Bay. St Pierre’s six weeks counted inside the 147 French. The tavern of the seas counted a poor crop, a northern ninety-two, a June hunter on the Little Fish, and an emptied first chair. It did not count a second horse ship. It counted a clock. [3] [9]
North and south the year stretched the colony’s remainder, its bench, its river, its graves, and its clock: early in the year San mustered in force, laid siege to several houses, murdered three of Jacob Joubert’s servants, and drove off large herds, and Van Jaarsveld with thirty picked men well mounted did not return until he had counted ninety-two dead; on the 15th of March Cook put into Table Bay in the Endeavour and, after refreshing his crew and taking in provisions, sailed on the 14th of April; Bernardin de St Pierre spent about six weeks at the Cape and wrote the sentinel, the trumpet, the chestnut canal, and the small plain house; the drought was not very severe, though the crop gathered was poor, the last of the five named years of 1751–1771; in June the elephant hunter Willem Prinsloo obtained permission from Tulbagh to select two farms within the colonial limits, went beyond them, and occupied the later site of Somerset East on the Little Fish, Europeans already settled along the high lands that far in defiance of the February 1770 line at Bruintjes Hoogte and the Gamtoos, the Boschberg invaded during the year after the Gamtoos was named the extreme limit; on the afternoon of the 11th of August Tulbagh seemed better than usual and between five and six in the evening, without a struggle, he died, aged seventy-two years and nearly three months, a childless widower since October 1758, his property to Johannes at Bergen-op-Zoom, to whom he had long allowed £200 a year; next morning the council directed Plettenberg to act as both governor and secunde and Bergh as fiscal, went into full mourning with their families for six weeks, and on the 17th, the town filled as never before, laid the landsfather beneath the pavement of the church, Johannes Petrus le Sueur delivering an oration without idle flattery; on the 25th of November the clock in the raised tower at last indicated the time. Under the acting baron, 1771 was not a year of installation but of a named visitor, a named hunter, a named count, a poor crop, an emptied first chair, and a clock that finally told the hour over a pavement. [3] [4] [7] [8] [9]