Boer History1773 at the Cape of Good Hope: Van Oudtshoorn Dies at Sea, a June Gale, and Faber’s Death
Acting Year: Castle Continuity — 1773
Calendar 1773 opened in the second full year of Joachim van Plettenberg as acting head of the government, elected by the council the morning after Ryk Tulbagh died, until the pleasure of the directors could be known. He had been educated as a lawyer and had very little experience in any other employment. A Friesland baron, born at Leeuwarden on the 8th of March 1739, son of Hendrik Casimir Baron van Plettenberg and Agatha Petronella van Ammema, he had gone from the Latin school to Utrecht, sailed for Batavia on the Amerongen on the 8th of May 1764 as adjunct-fiscal at twenty-five, and arrived in the colonial capital on the second day of 1765. In 1767 he married Cornelia Charlotte Feith, widow of Louis Taillefer, Director of Bengal. That same year saw the Van Plettenbergs at the Cape, where Joachim had been appointed independent fiscal. From the 30th of May 1770 he had sat the second chair as well as the important duties of fiscal; Olof Godlieb de Wet sat the fiscal’s routine. From the 12th of August 1771 he sat both the first chair and the second. Called to succeed a model governor, he was from the first moment at a disadvantage. The council of policy had had no choice: he was the only senior executive in the settlement when Father Tulbagh died. September 1772 had named a governor still in Holland. January 1773 would bury that named governor under the same pavement as the landsfather. [3] [7] [9]
Continuity of persons was the civic fact of the second acting year as much as novelty of a named governor still on the water. The same castle, the same boards, and many of the same officers remained. Lucas Sigismundus Faber still sat Stellenbosch when January opened; Joachim Frederik Mentz still sat the hamlet that Horak had left; Jan Frederik Kirsten still sat the winter port with the title of resident, with a stone pier. 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. Stellenbosch’s pulpit, emptied by the Rev. Johannes Appeldoorn in September 1772, still sat a consulent. The Rev. Van der Spuy still sat Drakenstein, and sat it inside the elder controversy that January 1772 had opened over Thomas Arnoldus Theron. Remmerus Harders still sat Waveren. Combined consistories had already ceased in 1759. The Castle’s ordinary business—open access, fixed fees, no private trading by officers—had been the landsfather’s habit. The second acting year inherited the habit, the empty first chair on paper, and a named governor who had not yet viewed Table Mountain. [3] [8] [9]
Outward, the land regime did not change from the 18 February 1770 names. The eastern boundary of the colony, according to the resolution of the council of policy, remained Bruintjes Hoogte and the Gamtoos river; but, in defiance of that prohibition, Europeans were settled along the high lands as far as the Little Fish river. 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. Europeans and Khoikhoi were living together on friendly terms in the old districts, but occasionally the peace was disturbed by San marauders. About the year 1770, cattle thefts and massacres of native herdsmen, and even of white colonists, had become events of such frequent occurrence that farms along the Nieuwveld, the Sneeuwberg, and the Winterberg were unsafe. Calendar 1773 inherited that northern paper and that eastern line, an October summons that a hunter had already evaded, a hospital stone of the 2nd of November 1772, and a named governor on the Asia. [3] [4] [7]
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 an acting baron. 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. The second acting year sat one hundred and twenty-one years from those gardens, with a first chair emptied in August 1771, a named governor who had not yet arrived, a hospital ground that from November held a stone, and a roadstead that from 1772 had jumped its seventy-a-year tally. During the twenty-one years 1751–1771 the average yearly number of ships at the two ports had been 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. Calendar 1773 would not break the line at Bruintjes Hoogte on paper. It would bury a named governor under the church pavement, detain a skipper for the naval yard, wreck an outward Indiaman beyond Salt River, and empty Stellenbosch’s drostdy in August. [3] [9]
The town in Table Valley had already been considerably enlarged. Strangers had begun to know it by the name of 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 fortifications had been repaired, and a new battery constructed near the mouth of Salt River. The tower of the church had been raised a few feet, and a clock placed in it that from the 25th of November 1771 at last indicated the time. The graveyard round the church had been closed; the cemetery between the Lion’s Rump and the shore of the bay had been opened early in 1770. The landsfather lay under the pavement of the church, not in the new cemetery. The hospital in Table Valley had been falling to ruins; the directors had resolved to build a new one; the ground had been prepared before Tulbagh’s death; the foundation stone had been laid by Van Plettenberg on the 2nd of November 1772. January therefore opened on an acting settlement, a paying roadstead, a clock that told the hour, a stone in the hospital ground, and a named governor still at sea. [3] [9]
Van Oudtshoorn Dies at Sea — 23 January 1773
Before the death of Tulbagh was known in the Netherlands, the Prince of Orange, acting upon the nomination of the directors, had appointed Pieter van Reede van Oudtshoorn secunde, as that gentleman had applied for employment again in South Africa, where some of his children were residing. It was then intended that Van Plettenberg should resume the duties of fiscal. Despatches announcing the death of Tulbagh arrived from the Cape, however, before Van Oudtshoorn could leave Holland, and he then had the office of governor conferred upon him, Van Plettenberg being at the same time appointed secunde. This information was received at the Cape on the 4th of September 1772. The second acting year therefore opened with a named governor who had gone through the Company’s mill, whose ties with the Cape were strong, and who had not yet sailed into Table Bay. [3] [9]
The newly appointed governor embarked in the ship Asia, but was taken ill at sea, and after nineteen days confinement to his bed died on the 23rd of January 1773. His body was placed in a leaden coffin which he had taken on board with him, and a few days after the arrival of the ship was buried with state under the pavement of the church. He did not arrive; or rather he did: his dead body carried ashore in a leaden coffin. He had fallen ill during the voyage and died before he could view his beloved Table Mountain once more. Had the new Master of the Castle ever arrived in Table Bay, the history of the Cape would have taken a different course. He had gone through the Company’s mill. He was much more “een van onze eigen menschen,” as the Dutch say, and for that reason alone would have met with more goodwill than Van Plettenberg could ever expect. [3] [9]
Two governors now lay under the same pavement. Tulbagh had been laid there on the 17th of August 1771, the funeral kept back to allow the country people to attend, the town filled as it never had been before. Oudtshoorn’s state burial was a named governor’s burial, not a landsfather’s. The new cemetery between the Lion’s Rump and the shore, opened early in 1770, still did not hold the Castle’s first chair. The clock in the raised tower told the hour over both coffins. The acting baron, moon-faced in the later portraits, cold-eyed, a sharp lawyer’s nose, born a century too late for the people he had to administer—tough, self-made settlers in a rough country—still sat both chairs because the named governor had died on the water. [3] [9]
The Prince of Orange then, upon the nomination of the directors, appointed Van Plettenberg governor, Otto Luder Hemmy secunde, and Advocate Willem Cornelis Boers fiscal. Those names were the Castle’s 1773 paper after the Asia’s coffin. The ceremony of installation belonged to the next calendar. Hemmy, who had previously filled the post of chief salesman, was a Capetonian. Boers was practising at the Hague when he received his appointment. With such short-cuts, Joachim van Plettenberg became the named governor of the Cape Colony while still sitting the acting chairs. The Seventeen’s letters travelled at the slow pace of the ocean. January’s death did not empty the acting year. It confirmed it. [3] [9]
September’s news of 1772 had not installed a governor. It had named one. January’s death did not install the acting baron. It named him, on paper still in Holland, while he already sat both chairs in the Castle. The second acting year therefore acquired, in January, a dead named governor under the pavement and a living acting head whom the Prince of Orange would now write as governor. The hospital stone of November, the Zon’s first produce cargo, and Cook’s outward call already sat 1772’s books. Calendar 1773 sat a coffin, a skipper to be detained, five Indiamen against orders, and a drostdy that would empty in August. [3] [9]
Staring at the Naval Yard; Kerguelen in Simon’s Bay — April–May 1773
The office of master of the naval establishment became vacant in April 1773, and the council filled it provisionally by detaining here an energetic skipper named Damien Hugo Staring. His appointment was later confirmed by the supreme authorities. The naval yard was the Castle’s wet paper: boats, stores, the Company’s ships in the two bays, and the winter port’s pier of 1768. Detaining a skipper was the council’s ordinary remedy when a chair emptied and Holland was months away. Staring sat that chair from April while the acting baron still sat both of the inner ones, and while Hemmy and Boers were still names on a nomination, not yet in their rooms. [3]
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. April’s detained skipper sat the Company’s naval yard, not the winter port’s resident chair. The two wet chairs were not one. [3] [9]
In May 1773 the French explorer Captain Kerguelen, when proceeding to visit the South Polar Sea, put into Simon’s Bay with the Rolland and the Oiseau. He would put into the same port again when returning to Brest. May’s French call sat the winter port, not Table Bay. Cook had touched Table Bay with the Resolution and Adventure on the outward passage in November 1772. Kerguelen sat the other bay, the stone pier, and Kirsten’s resident chair. The tavern of the seas now counted a French southern explorer beside the English circumnavigator of the previous November, and beside Charles Peter Thunberg, who was still in the colony under the patronage and in the pay of the Dutch East India Company, having come from Europe as a surgeon in one of its ships. [3] [9]
Distinguished travellers of various nationalities would leave impressions of what they saw in several volumes across Van Plettenberg’s years. First among these ranked the Swedish naturalist Sparrman, who had already left in the Resolution with Cook in November 1772. Thunberg, also a Swede, remained. Captain Stavorinus, a Zeelander, Lieutenant Paterson, an Englishman, and M. Le Vaillant, a Frenchman, belonged to later calendars. Calendar 1773’s named visitor in the winter port was Kerguelen with two French ships bound for the south. The acting year did not need a gilded coach for that call. It needed a pier, a magazine, and a resident who had sat Simon’s Town since 1761. [3]
Five Indiamen in a North-West Gale — 1 June 1773
Contrary to the instructions of the directors, there were five Indiamen in Table Bay on the 1st of June 1773, when a gale from the north-west set in. A little after dawn, one of them—the outward-bound ship Jonge Thomas—was driven from her anchors and cast on the beach beyond the mouth of Salt River. It was seen that the wreck could not hold together long, but for some time nothing was done to save the crew. The Salt River battery, constructed in Tulbagh’s years near the mouth, looked on a beach that the directors had not meant to hold five Indiamen in a north-wester. Winter in Table Bay was the reason for Simon’s Town. Five ships against orders sat that reason as wreckage. [3]
In the course of the morning, however, a dairyman named Wolraad Woltemaade visited the scene of the disaster. Woltemaade, who was mounted on a powerful horse, dashed into the breakers and reached the ship’s side. With two men holding to the horse’s tail he returned to the shore, and this feat he repeated until he had saved fourteen of the crew. In the next venture he was swept under a breaker and was drowned. Shortly after this the wreck broke up, when one hundred and thirty-eight men lost their lives and fifty-three reached the land, making sixty-seven saved in all. Fourteen of those sixty-seven had come ashore on a dairyman’s horse. The rest had come ashore when the ship went to pieces. [3]
The directors caused the exploit of the brave dairyman to be pictured on the stern of the next ship built for them, which they named the Held Woltemaade, the Hero Woltemaade. The Castle’s June paper was therefore a wreck, a drowned horseman, a named ship on a future stern, and a prohibition the five Indiamen had already broken. There had been but few disasters on the coast in the years just behind: the loss of the Doddington and the drifting ashore of the Meermin had already been written in earlier calendars. Calendar 1773 added a named wreck to that short list, in the bay the directors had ordered emptied for the winter, on the beach beyond the battery at Salt River. [3]
Five Indiamen in Table Bay on the first of June was not a surprise of weather. It was a breach of paper. The winter port existed so that the Company’s ships would not sit that beach. Kirsten’s pier, the square hospital of 130 feet, the stores, the slaughter house, and the bakery at Simon’s Town were the directors’ answer to June. The five ships had not used it. One of them paid on the sand beyond Salt River. The other four rode out the gale in the bay they had been told to leave. Staring’s new naval chair, detained only in April, sat a yard that had not kept five Indiamen out of a north-wester. [3]
Sixty-seven saved and one hundred and thirty-eight lost was the wreck’s arithmetic. Fourteen of the saved were Woltemaade’s. The horse had done what boats had not done in the morning. The dairyman had not been a Company’s officer and had not been a burgher councillor. He had been a man with a powerful horse on a beach the Castle had been slow to work. The next ship’s stern would carry his picture and his name. The pavement under the church already carried a named governor’s coffin from January. June added a dairyman’s name to the Company’s hulls, not to the pavement. [3]
Foreign shipping had already jumped in 1772 and did not fall off. Dutch Indiamen were not the only hulls that would need the two bays. The nine years 1772–1780 would count, in Table Bay, 418 Dutch ships, 159 English, 192 French, 41 Danish, 7 Swedish, 16 Spanish, 9 Portuguese, and 3 Austrian; and in Simon’s Bay 47 Dutch, 85 English, 46 French, 17 Danish, 1 Austrian, and 6 Swedish; or, on an average, 52 Dutch ships and 65 under various other flags yearly at the two ports. June’s gale sat inside that jump. It sat a Company breach, not a foreign one. The Jonge Thomas was outward-bound, a Dutch hull, on a beach the battery already knew. [3] [9]
Faber Dies — August 1773
In August 1773 Lucas Sigismundus Faber, landdrost of Stellenbosch and Drakenstein, died. He had held the chair since June 1769, when Jacobus Johannes le Sueur was promoted and Faber succeeded him. The secretary of the district— Abraham Faure— acted until October, when Marthinus Adriaan Bergh was appointed landdrost. August therefore emptied an outer chair that January had still listed among the acting year’s continuities. Mentz still sat Swellendam. Kirsten still sat Simon’s Town. The Cape pulpit still sat three deep. Stellenbosch’s drostdy, handsomer since the fire of the 31st of October 1762 and safer since Martin Melk moved the river after the flood of the 30th of May 1768, changed its signature in August and again in October. [3]
Faber’s four years and two months had sat the December 1769 commission that named the Zwartberg as the Stellenbosch–Swellendam dividing line, the 18 February 1770 placaat that named Bruintjes Hoogte and the Gamtoos as the eastern edge, the May 1772 letter from Stellenbosch that a San party on the Roggeveld border had murdered Hendrik Teutman, his wife and daughter, and a servant of Adriaan Louw, and the October 1772 instruction to have Willem Prinsloo removed from the Little Fish—an instruction the hunter had evaded. He had sat a village enlarged and improved in appearance during Tulbagh’s administration, a drostdy rebuilt handsomer after fire, a river whose course had been altered to prevent another flood. August took the landdrost. It did not take the Zwartberg line, the Gamtoos paper, or the hunter still beyond the boundary. [3] [4]
Stellenbosch’s pulpit had already been empty of a resident clergyman since Appeldoorn died in September 1772. The congregation sat a consulent. The post would remain vacant. August’s death therefore left the village with a new acting landdrost and still without a settled minister. Van der Spuy still sat Drakenstein, and still sat it inside the Theron controversy. Harders still sat Waveren. The Cape three still rode to Zwartland month about. The outer civil chair changed; the outer pulpits did not, except the one already empty. [3] [8]
Faure’s acting months were two. Bergh’s appointment in October closed the vacancy the way the council closed vacancies: from the civil list of the district, the secretary first, then a named landdrost. Swellendam remained a mere hamlet, Mentz in Horak’s chair, the Breede pontoon of 1757 still the public boat on that road. The two outer districts no longer shared a landdrost, and from August they no longer shared Faber’s four-year signature on Stellenbosch letters. October wrote Bergh. The northern farms that a field corporal had already ridden, and the eastern hunter who had already evaded a summons, sat the new name as they had sat the old. [3]
Produce, Foreign Demand, and the Hospital Rising — 1773
The ground upon which the new hospital was to stand had been prepared before the death of Governor Tulbagh, but the building had not been commenced until Van Plettenberg laid the foundation stone on the 2nd of November 1772. 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. As most of the materials used in the construction of this building were sent from the Netherlands, the directors, in a despatch dated the 18th of October 1771, had required the council to provide return cargoes of Cape produce for the ships bringing them out, provided produce of good quality could be had at reasonable rates. They had complained of the high prices and inferior quality of various samples previously sent home, excepting wheat, and had therefore issued orders that the bulk of the cargoes should consist of that grain. Calendar 1773 sat that stone with walls beginning to rise, and sat those return cargoes as a continuing paper from 1772. [3]
When those instructions had arrived, the French were laying in large supplies of meal, wine, and meat for their men-of-war and magazines at Mauritius, and the preceding harvest had not been quite as good as usual, so that prices were ruling high. In 1772 only one ship laden with materials for the Cape had arrived; she was a large one, and had brought out reinforcements of troops also. The council had sent her to Batavia for orders, and had prepared the Cape packet Zon, a vessel of about three hundred tons burden, to take produce to Europe. To obtain even that quantity, it had been necessary to prohibit for a time the sale of grain to foreigners for exportation. That first cargo had consisted of 2,997 muids of wheat, 87 muids of rye, 222 muids of barley, 82 leggers of assorted wines, and 5,300 pounds of tallow. The profits had been so satisfactory to the directors that they resolved to continue the importation of South African produce. From that date until the commencement of the war with England, a period of nine years, a quantity of Cape produce was yearly sent to the Netherlands. Calendar 1773 was the second of those nine. [3]
The increase of exports above those of previous years did not cause increased prosperity to the colonists. The prices paid by the Company were ruinously low. For the wheat sent to India the farmers received only 8s. 9¾d. and for that sent to Europe only 5s. 11½d. a muid, after the government dues were deducted. The butter was bought at 6d. to 8d., and the tallow at about 2d. a pound. At the same time there was a constant demand for all kinds of farm produce at more than double the prices which the Company was giving. It was specifically in the domain of exports that the first more serious grumblings were heard. Instead of boosting the prosperity of the farmers who participated in the supplies, the exports had rather the effect of causing frustration and bitterness. The prices paid by the Company were so low that it was hardly worthwhile to toil. [3] [9]
All of the foreign ships needed fresh provisions. Some of the French vessels were sent from Mauritius expressly to obtain cargoes of grain, meat, and wine; and occasionally an English vessel arrived from St. Helena for the same purpose. The directors admitted that they should be encouraged to call, as they brought ready money into the country and increased the revenue. Owing to them, the contract for the supply of meat to the Company could now be taken at less than 4d. a pound, for the contractor had the privilege of charging foreigners 2d. more. The farmer of the duty of £1 a legger on wine and spirits sold to foreigners for exportation could now afford to pay nearly £1,000 a year for it. The licensed retail dealer in wines and spirits could afford to bid £1,000 a year more for his monopoly. The average production of wine was 8,244 leggers, and the Company needed only 945. The directors were therefore only too glad to know that the surplus could be sold at high rates at the Cape. With grain it was different. As much of this as could be produced could be sold at a profit, and it therefore became a matter for calculation to get as large a quantity as possible without driving foreigners away. The fiscal took control of the trade, and permitted nothing to be sold to strangers without his leave. The burghers protested against this infringement of their rights, but to no purpose. [3]
The twenty-one years 1751–1771 had averaged 11,791 muids of wheat, 202 of rye, 68 of barley, 202 of peas, 174 of beans, and 346 leggers of common wine to India, with butter from 1754 averaging 22,322 pounds a year, and rather over 100 leggers of common wine to Europe besides as much Constantia as could be obtained, usually not more than 14 or 15 leggers. The nine years 1772–1780 would average, to Europe, 15 leggers Constantia wine, 98 leggers ordinary wines, 10,714 muids of wheat, 28,800 pounds of tallow, and 8,614 pounds of aloes; and to India 14,419 muids of wheat, 180 of rye, 66 of barley, 87 of beans, 100 of peas, 296 leggers of wine, 18,618 pounds of butter, 11,555 pounds of tallow, and 1,183 pounds of ivory. Calendar 1773 sat inside those averages as the second produce year and the second year of the shipping jump. It sat a hospital rising on Dutch materials, a packet paper already proved, and a fiscal’s hand on grain sold to strangers. [3] [9]
Church, Frontier Paper, and Civic Works — 1773
The various churches in the colony were still well supplied with clergymen, save Zwartland and Stellenbosch. At the Cape, Kroonenburg, Bode, and Serrurier of Hanau were all in active service, and still held service at Zwartland monthly in succession. Appeldoorn’s death in September 1772 had left Stellenbosch to a consulent; the post remained vacant through 1773. Van der Spuy still sat Drakenstein, and sat it inside the elder controversy over Theron that had opened in January 1772 and had not closed. Harders still sat Waveren, made permanent there by the directors in 1761. Combined consistories had ceased in 1759. 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 in 1771 and one named burial in January 1773. The outer civil chair changed in August. The outer pulpits did not, except the one already empty. [3] [8]
The church at Drakenstein remained an arena of strife. The election in January 1772 of Thomas Arnoldus Theron as an elder had been objected to by a considerable section of the congregation, on the ground that he was not properly qualified, and the controversy had become violent. Philippe Jacob Naudé of Berlin had in 1772 passed a power of attorney in favour of David Naudé and the Rev. Louis Ancillon of Berlin. Four of the opposite faction would be excommunicated by the consistory. Calendar 1773 sat that strife as an inherited paper, not as a new election. Van der Spuy still held the pulpit while the parties did not hold the peace. [3] [8]
Despite the punishments of 1772, the San seemed to become constantly bolder, and at length they did not fear to attack farmhouses in open day. Horned cattle, sheep, and goats were driven off in hundreds together, the herdsmen were murdered, and from several localities the Europeans were obliged to retire. The struggle between the farmers along the northern border and the San had become almost incessant. The two races could not live side by side. There were probably many contests of which the government never heard. Khoikhoi and half-breeds were just as anxious as the colonists to chastise the San, for they had suffered equally. Some Khoikhoi were living in reserves, under captains recognised by the Cape government, and were not subject to colonial courts of law except in cases affecting white people. Lily Fontein in the Kamiesberg, secured to captain Wildschut and his people in 1772, still sat that northern paper. Others of this race were living with the colonists, either in charge of herds of cattle or as domestic servants. As many as were needed joined the burghers against the common enemy, and were provided with firearms and ammunition. [3] [7]
Eastward, Willem Prinsloo still sat the Little Fish. In June 1771 he had obtained permission from Tulbagh to select two farms within the colonial limits, but had gone beyond them and occupied the site of the later village of Somerset East. In October 1772 the acting governor had instructed the landdrost of Stellenbosch to have him removed; he had managed to evade the summons. Several others had followed him. The settlers sent a petition that they might be authorised to remain where they were. Calendar 1773 did not answer that petition with a new eastern line. It sat the 18 February 1770 names—Bruintjes Hoogte and the Gamtoos—and it sat Europeans along the high lands as far as the Little Fish, placaats ineffectual, Faber’s last months and Bergh’s first ones equally unable to pull the hunter back. [3] [4]
The clock in the raised tower had indicated the time since the 25th of November 1771. The second acting year sat its civic paper not with a new street and not with a new battery, but with a hospital rising on the November stone, a clock that already told the hour over a pavement that now held the landsfather and a named governor, and a cemetery between the Lion’s Rump and the shore that had been opened early in 1770. The Wapen Pleyn had once more been levelled and provided with a hedge of oak trees. The whole aspect of the Caabse Vlek had changed rapidly, and the name Kaapstad did not sound euphemistic any longer. June’s wreck sat that changed town’s beach. Kerguelen’s two ships sat its winter port. Thunberg sat its hinterland with a botanist’s press. Staring sat its naval yard. Faber’s death sat its outer drostdy. Oudtshoorn’s coffin sat its church pavement, and Plettenberg still sat both inner chairs. [3] [9]
North and south the year stretched the colony’s remainder, its bench, its river, its graves, and its beach: on the 23rd of January Pieter van Reede van Oudtshoorn died at sea after nineteen days in bed on the Asia, and a few days after the ship arrived was buried with state under the pavement of the church; the Prince of Orange then named Plettenberg governor, Hemmy secunde, and Boers fiscal; in April the naval establishment fell vacant and the council detained Damien Hugo Staring; in May Kerguelen put into Simon’s Bay with the Rolland and the Oiseau; on the 1st of June, contrary to orders, five Indiamen lay in Table Bay when a north-west gale drove the Jonge Thomas onto the beach beyond Salt River, Wolraad Woltemaade saved fourteen on a horse and drowned, the wreck broke up, one hundred and thirty-eight lost and sixty-seven saved, the next ship to be named the Held Woltemaade; in August Faber died, Faure acted, and in October Bergh was appointed landdrost of Stellenbosch; Stellenbosch’s pulpit still sat a consulent; Drakenstein still sat Theron’s strife; Zwartland still sat the Cape three month about; Prinsloo still sat the Little Fish; San parties grew bolder against farmhouses; Lily Fontein still sat Wildschut; the hospital rose on Dutch materials; foreign ships still paid more than the Company; Thunberg still botanized. Under the acting baron, 1773 was not a year of installation but of a coffin under the church, a dairyman in the breakers, and an outer chair emptied in August. [3] [4] [7] [8] [9]