Boer History1781 at the Cape of Good Hope: War News, Porto Praya, Suffren, Saldanha, and Van Jaarsveld’s Commando
Seventh Full Installed Year: Castle Continuity — 1781
Calendar 1781 opened as the seventh full year of the Prince’s commission dated the 18th of May 1774. Joachim van Plettenberg still sat the first chair, a Friesland baron already raised, in February 1776, to councillor extraordinary of Netherlands India. Pieter Hacker still sat the second chair. Willem Cornelis Boers still sat the fiscal’s office, detested as few men in South Africa have been. Olof Godlieb de Wet still sat Stellenbosch’s drostdy. The four Cape names already heard in East-India House on the 16th of October 1779 still sat in Holland. Jacobus van Reenen, Barend Jacob Artois, Tieleman Roos, and Nicholas Godfried Heyns still waited inside the fifteen hundred nights. The answers of the first chair and of the fiscal were not yet on a homeward ship. [3] [9]
In the country the same inherited chairs still sat. Abraham Faure still sat the secretaryship under De Wet. Swellendam remained under Daniel van Ryneveld. Christoffel Brand still sat the winter port. Damien Hugo Staring still sat the naval establishment, as brave a man as ever sailed the sea, but so deeply implicated in the prevailing peculations that the colonists greatly disliked him. Captain Robert Jacob Gordon still sat the garrison he had taken in February 1780, a man of unblemished character, an enthusiast in natural history, and an ardent explorer, but with no special qualifications as a leader in war. Captain Carel Matthys Willem de Lille still sat next after Gordon. The seamen and mechanics remained under Staring. The outposts at Saldanha Bay, Groenkloof, Klapmuts, Zonder End, and Buffeljagts River were still maintained. [3]
The pulpits of the seventh full installed year opened on a new third chair at the Cape. The directors had understood that upon the first death or retirement a successor would not be appointed; they now annulled that former decision, and sent out the Rev. Christiaan Fleck, who was inducted as third clergyman of the Cape in January 1781. The Cape church therefore sat three again: the Rev. Johannes Frederik Bode, the Rev. Johannes Petrus Serrurier of Hanau, and Fleck. Stellenbosch still sat the Rev. Philip Kuys. Waveren still sat the Rev. Johannes Abraham Kuys. Zwartland still sat the Rev. Daniel Goldbach. Drakenstein still sat the Rev. Van der Spuy inside the elder controversy that January 1772 had opened over Thomas Arnoldus Theron, until March 1781, when Van der Spuy was obliged to retire on pension, owing to age and bodily infirmities. The Lutheran pulpit that Andreas Kolver had opened on the 10th of December 1780 still sat in Martin Melk’s Strand Street church, paid by the congregation, without a stiver from the Company’s chest. [3]
Outward, the land regime still opened on the 14 November 1780 names. The Fish river along the whole of its lower course remained the colonial boundary, with the Zuurveld added on paper to the Company’s possessions. Adriaan van Jaarsveld still sat Bruintjes Hoogte with military authority over the whole of the border farmers, and with the 5 December instruction to offer cattle for cattle before he assembled force. The third drostdy still did not sit. On the frontiers the first chair had usually taken three young bullocks instead of the £4 16s. San marauders still disturbed the Nieuwveld, the Sneeuwberg, and the Winterberg. The struggle along the northern border had become almost incessant. In March 1781 some San drove off a herd of cattle from the farm of Hans Potgieter, but were pursued by twelve of Potgieter’s neighbours, who hastily assembled and formed a commando. The robbers were overtaken, when some of them were shot, and the cattle were recovered. In the Hantam, one Van Reenen had granted to him, under loan-place tenure, three farms, one of which, the Gemerkte Carreehout Boom, carried the exclusive right to the pasturage on the top of the Hantamberg. [3] [4]
The nine produce years 1772–1780 still framed the roadstead when the year opened: average exportation to Europe 15 leggers Constantia, 98 leggers ordinary wines, 10,714 muids of wheat; to India 14,419 muids of wheat and 296 leggers of wine. Company prices remained ruinously low. During those nine years, on an average, 52 Dutch ships and 65 under various other flags had touched yearly at the two ports. Calendar 1781 opened on that average, without war news yet in Table Bay, and without knowing that the ordinary traffic was about to cease. [3]
Memorial Answers — 2 February and 21 March 1781
A copy of the memorial of thirty-seven clauses, signed by four hundred and four, had already reached the Castle with the directors’ instructions to answer forthwith. Similar orders sat on Fiscal Boers and on the other officials about whom complaints had been made. The directors had already written that they would be greatly displeased if any resentment were shown, directly or indirectly, towards those who had signed. Calendar 1781 therefore opened with that letter already on the Castle table, and with four Cape men still waiting in Amsterdam. [3] [9]
The document containing the comments of the fiscal upon the memorial is dated the 2nd of February 1781, and is of great length. Boers was hospitable, generous, diligent in his duties, and fond of scientific pursuits. But his sympathies were all with the ruling classes, and he felt and expressed supreme contempt for the colonists, who were to him simply unlettered peasants. For more than a century the burgher councillors had been consulted whenever enactments affecting the colonists were in contemplation. They proposed maximum prices, inspected weights and measures, and in numberless instances had appeared as the representatives of the burgher community. Yet Boers maintained that their sole functions were those of assistant members of the high court of justice, and quoted the terms of the first burgher councillor’s appointment by Van Goens in 1657. Long usage did not affect the question in his eyes. He admitted that free trade in farm produce had been recognised, but pleaded that without restraint the country might be in danger of famine. He had prohibited the sale of anything without his permission, to collect the export duty of £1 and the licensed dealer’s dues of £1 on every legger of wine, and his own fee of 1s. 4d. on every hundred pounds of grain supplied to foreigners. Who were these colonists? he asked. A parcel of people released from the Company’s service as an act of grace. He ignored that a very large proportion were descendants of immigrants who had never been in the Company’s service. The other accused officials also drew up statements. Transmission of these papers to the Netherlands was delayed for several months by the cessation of the ordinary traffic. [3] [9]
Governor Van Plettenberg’s reply is dated the 21st of March 1781. He did not think the memorial could represent the whole body of colonists: nearly three thousand burghers, and the delegates chosen by only four hundred and four. Not a single burgher of Swellendam had signed. It had always been the custom to consult the acting and retired burgher councillors, and he had not failed to do so. The country presented every appearance of prosperity. Numbers of the Company’s servants were yearly taking their discharge and becoming colonists. On the frontiers, he stated, the people were less fortunately placed, exposed to San and Xhosa depredations; with them he had usually taken three young bullocks instead of the £4 16s. The colonists in general, he affirmed, desired to lead an indolent life, merely directing the labour of Khoikhoi and slaves. Nearly two hundred of the Company’s soldiers were on leave as mechanics and schoolmasters. He objected to burgher members in the council of policy; the Company’s interests were to be regarded as of greater importance. He recommended equal numbers of officials and burghers in the high court, and favoured clearly defined laws. The principal perquisite of the governor was £1 6s. 8d. on every legger of wine sold to the Company; the seller signed a receipt for £8 and received £5 8s. In conclusion, he requested to be relieved of his duties. Party feeling was running very high, he said, and only an entire stranger could restore concord. March put that letter on paper. It did not yet put it on a homeward ship. [3] [9]
War News — 31 March 1781
On the 31st of March 1781 the French frigate Silphide arrived in Table Bay with a despatch from the Dutch ambassador at Paris: on the 20th of the preceding December Great Britain had declared war with the United Provinces, and the States were in alliance with France. The intelligence was received with alarm. The mother country no longer occupied the proud position of a century earlier, and England was casting longing eyes upon the Cape as the key of the Indian seas. Dutch maritime glory was by now a fading memory; England’s strong navy a hard reality. Fortunately for the first chair, the situation in 1781 was, in one important aspect, far more favourable than in Goske’s time. Then the Dutch had had to fight English and French combined; now the French were friends. Several French cruisers were already anchored in the bay when the war tidings reached Van Plettenberg’s writing desk. [3] [7] [9]
The colony was almost defenceless. Its revenue was between £15,000 and £16,000 a year. For a long time the balance of expenditure over revenue had averaged £25,000 a year. There were five hundred and thirty soldiers of all arms on the books, but more than one-fourth had been allowed to take service with farmers. There were further some six hundred and fifty individuals in the Company’s pay. Next there was a corps of free blacks, usually drilled for a few days in October. From these sources combined about eleven hundred combatants could be counted upon, of whom only one half were well drilled. The militia, though nearly three thousand strong on paper, could not furnish a fourth of that number for the defence of Cape Town. These three thousand burghers were scattered over ninety or a hundred thousand square miles, constantly in arms east and north against Xhosa and San. [3] [9]
As soon as intelligence was received that the mother country was at war, the burghers within the old settled districts declared their readiness to do all in their power for the defence of the colony. Their disaffection to Van Plettenberg did not interfere with their loyalty to the Netherlands. A call was made upon Stellenbosch, and on the 2nd of April a detachment arrived at the castle. Half of the Stellenbosch militia were to remain under arms in Cape Town for a month, then be relieved by the other half. In spite of their grievances they came flocking to his banner. He also formed a company of clerks of the Castle, the Pennisten, and made Fiscal Boers their captain. [3] [9]
The day after the war news, the English brig Betsy — a St. Helena packet — dropped her anchors in Table Bay without suspicion of danger. French cruisers sent their boats and took her without resistance. They also seized a vessel under Tuscan colours as English property. The Betsy was transferred to Van Plettenberg, renamed the Postiljon, and placed under François Duminy, who was sent with all speed to Ceylon. The Company’s packet Herstelder was ready to sail with wheat for Europe; within twenty-four hours she was on her way to Batavia with despatches. English visitors and the officers of the Betsy were sent to a Company’s outpost. The English sailors were distributed among the Dutch ships. [3] [9]
Several richly laden homeward ships lay in Table Bay. Winter was approaching; they could not be kept there, and Simon’s Bay could not defend them. It was resolved to protect the entrance to Hout Bay with a battery of twenty cannon on the western point. Within a few weeks the ships Batavia, Amsterdam, Morgenster, and Indiaan were sent there. Hout Bay being too small for more than four or five heavy ships, any others were to go to Saldanha Bay. On the 18th of May the homeward ships Hoogkarspel, Honkoop, Middelburg, Paarl, and Dankbaarheid were sent there, and with them the outward Held Woltemaade, that she might repair and refresh before Ceylon. Gerrit Harmeyer was appointed commodore, directed to unbend all sails into the packets Zon and Snelheid, now useless owing to the war. Seven weeks of suspense passed. On the 20th of May the French frigate Serapis dropped anchor in Simon’s Bay: a French fleet with a strong body of troops might shortly be expected. Chevalier de la Roche and Brand were the heroes of that day. As soon as war was proclaimed, England had begun to fit out an expedition to seize the colony. Every particular was made known to the French court by a spy named De la Motte, resident in London. It was a trial of speed, with the Cape as the prize. [3] [9]
Porto Praya — 16 April 1781
On the 18th of March 1781 the English fleet sailed from Spithead: the Romney, of 50 guns, carrying the flag of Commodore George Johnstone, the Hero, 74, Monmouth, 64, Jupiter, 50, Isis, 50, and the rest — forty-six sail in all, with three thousand troops under General Meadows. Johnstone came to anchor in Porto Praya roads at St. Jago to water. He had no suspicion of danger. The decks of the ships of war were encumbered with casks and lumber, and the best seamen were ashore bringing water to the boats. [3]
While in this condition, on the 16th of April strange ships with no colours flying stood in under all sail. There was hardly time to clear the guns before the leading vessel dropped anchor within cable’s length of the Isis, poured a broadside into that frigate, and ran the French flag to her mizen peak. The attacker was Pierre André de Suffren, vice admiral of France, with the Heros, 74, Hannibal, 74, Vengeur, 64, Artisan, 64, and Sphinx, 64. A corvette and eight transports remained in the offing. Suffren had sailed from Brest on the 2nd of March, hoping to reach the Cape before Johnstone. Off St. Jago the Artisan, in advance, observed the English fleet, and Captain De Cardaillac put about and informed the admiral. He inquired what was to be done if a Portuguese fort — the island being neutral — opened fire. “Open fire in return,” replied the admiral. [3]
The English fleet was taken at a tremendous disadvantage. The commodore’s ship, moored inside the Indiamen, could take little part in the defence. The five French ships of the line were anchored to windward, pouring in broadsides as fast as their guns could be loaded. Some of the transports in the confusion fired into the Indiamen. In ten minutes a cheer arose as the French admiral’s mizen topmast and ensign were carried away. Captain Ward of the Hero boarded the Artisan; he did not capture her, but after a desperate fight in which De Cardaillac was killed he took twenty-five prisoners. From those prisoners the English first learnt that their destination was the Cape of Good Hope: the fleet was sailing under sealed orders. After nearly two hours the Hannibal’s fire slackened; her three masts went over. Her captain had been killed and nearly two hundred men lay dead or wounded. Suffren cut cables, took the Hannibal in tow, and stood out, taking with him the Hinchinbroke, Fortitude, Infernal, and Edward. Johnstone ordered pursuit, but after three hours’ delay — the Isis crippled, night setting in — he abandoned it. [3]
English loss at Porto Praya was forty-two killed and one hundred and forty-one wounded; the French somewhat heavier. The four prizes were recovered or recaptured within a few days. Twenty-one Englishmen remained prisoners in the Heros, against the twenty-five Frenchmen Ward had taken from the Artisan. Suffren made the best of his way to the Cape. Jury masts were fitted in the Hannibal, and the wind was generally fair. The Cape did not yet know that fight. April sat it at St. Jago. June would sit its winner in Simon’s Bay. [3]
Van Jaarsveld’s Commando — 23 May to 19 July 1781
On the eastern border the commando authorised in December 1780 had not yet taken the field when the year opened. Early in the summer the old chief Langa, brother of Rarabe and head of the Amambala, moved to the west bank of the Bushman’s river. As a peace offering he sent a small herd of cattle and a few horses taken from farmers in the Zuurveld, with a message that he wished to remain a short time where he was. When Van Jaarsveld offered him the choice of retreating or being attacked, Langa elected to retire, and did so at once. Of all the chiefs who had invaded the colony he was the only one willing to retreat. The several divisions of the Imidange, the Amagwali under Titi, the Amantinde under Cika, and clans of less note declined to move. Finding that his peace offer was rejected, Van Jaarsveld did not hesitate. [3] [4] [9]
He collected the European and Khoikhoi families of the frontier in a couple of lagers formed by drawing up waggons in a circle and filling the spaces between the wheels with thorn trees. One account has two large central encampments west of the Great Fish, gaps filled with thorny acacia securely fastened, and heavy iron chains lashing the barricade. Inside, the families of the white colonists; the walls guarded by frontier hunters; the Khoikhoi sheltering near. Leaving a few men to defend the camps, with ninety-two burghers and forty Khoikhoi, all mounted and well armed, he took the field on the 23rd of May 1781. [3] [4] [7] [9]
From the commandant’s own report, dated the 20th of July 1781: the Xhosa having again moved in among our people with all their property, resistance became urgently necessary. On the 1st of June he warned the nearest captain. On the 2nd they had made no preparation to depart, and said they would not go. The interpreter Karkotie secretly warned him to be well on his guard: he had heard the Xhosa encouraging each other to push in boldly and pretend to ask for tobacco. On the 6th they went to them for the third time, again ready to push in with their weapons. The commandant saw that if the Xhosa made the first attack many must fall on our side. He hastily collected all the tobacco the men had, cut it into small bits, went about twelve paces in front, and threw it to the Xhosa, calling them to pick it up. They ran out from amongst us and forgot their plan. He then gave the word to fire. The said three captains and all their men were overthrown and slain, and part of their cattle to the number of 800 taken. [4]
The advantage was followed up with the greatest activity. Driven from place to place, the whole of the enemy fled over the stated boundary. At Naude’s Hoek 260 were killed and 2,200 head of cattle taken, and shortly after over 3,000 more were captured. On the 19th of July the commando was disbanded, having been in the field from the 23rd of May, scarcely two months, and only when the last of the intruders was again beyond the Fish. One account has a pitched battle in the open and all driven back across the Great Fish. On that date not a single intruder was still to be found on the wrong bank. While these events were taking place, it was too much to expect that the farmers of the eastern districts would leave their families and proceed to Cape Town, four or five hundred miles distant, to keep watch against a foreign foe. [3] [4] [7] [9]
The spoil — five thousand three hundred head of horned cattle, among which were many recently taken from the farmers — was divided by the commandant among the members of his force. On the 9th of October the council of policy resolved that the cattle might be retained on this occasion, but that this decision was not to form a precedent, much less to serve as a basis for the colonists to seek a quarrel with the Xhosa and to rob them of anything that belonged to them. The demonstration of ability to perform what was threatened had a salutary effect; it was not until some years afterwards that the Xhosa ventured again to molest the white inhabitants. Calendar 1781’s eastern year closed on that October minute, not on a landdrost. The Zuurveld was Company’s paper, and for a season a cleared run. [3] [4]
Suffren, Pondicherry, and Saldanha — June–July 1781
On the 21st of June the Heros arrived in Simon’s Bay in advance of the rest. It was feared that the English fleet was close at hand, so the signal guns on prominent hills were fired, and a large body of burghers hastened from within two hundred miles. After a few days the French transports arrived: a company of artillery, part of the infantry regiment of Austrasie, and the regiment of Pondicherry under Colonel Conway, an Irishman in the French service. These troops marched overland and entered Cape Town on the 3rd of July. Austrasie, not intended to remain long, was quartered in a large warehouse adjoining the Lutheran church, until it could be sent to Mauritius. Pondicherry, which was to remain during the war, was quartered in a wing of the new hospital. That building was not yet completed, though eighty to a hundred men had been working upon it for nearly nine years. In June 1779 a portion had first been used as a hospital; one large ward as a grain magazine, another as a wine magazine. Now, for the first time, the right wing was turned into a barrack. [3] [9]
The demand for provisions for the French fleet and troops caused a sudden and great increase in prices. The governor and council invited the acting and retired burgher councillors to form a committee with two government officers to draw up a wartime scale. The committee proposed as a maximum: wheat to strangers not higher than twelve shillings a muid, meal fourteen shillings and eight pence farthing the hundred pounds, wine nine pounds a legger (of which one pound to the licensed dealer), beef two pence a pound, and mutton a penny a pound. The council agreed, and prohibited selling at a dearer rate. Two Danish Indiamen, homeward bound, that put into Simon’s Bay were detained, lest they touch at St. Helena or meet strangers at sea. The Held Woltemaade, having completed her repairs, was permitted to sail for Ceylon. [3]
As soon as Johnstone could refit after Porto Praya, he sailed for the Cape, still hoping to arrive before Suffren, whom he thought likely to put into Brazil. When near his destination he sent the Active ahead to reconnoitre Table Bay. Captain Mackenzie hoisted French colours and ran toward a strange sail standing south: the Held Woltemaade, just out of Saldanha. Hailed in French, her officers gave full information concerning Suffren and the five ships they had recently parted from. Mackenzie then hauled down the French flag and demanded surrender under pain of sinking her. She was given up without a blow. Besides a valuable cargo, the captors found £40,000 sterling intended for the government of Ceylon. Learning that the Cape was now too strong to be attacked, Johnstone resolved to make himself master of the five Indiamen. [3]
At half past nine on the morning of the 21st of July, the look-out at Saldanha Bay signalled a large fleet under French colours standing straight in. An hour later the leading ships were within the entrance, when they hauled down the French and hoisted English. Defence and escape were alike impossible. Skipper Van Gennep of the Middelburg was the only one of the five who had inflammable materials ready. Although all the ships were hastily set on fire and abandoned, the English got possession of the Hoogkarspel, Honkoop, Paarl, and Dankbaarheid in time to extinguish the flames. Three fires were kindled in the hold of the Middelburg by her chief officer Abraham de Smidt, with the steward and one seaman. They did not make their escape until the English were within cannon shot. The flames reached the magazine; an explosion hurled chests of tea and bales of cotton high into the air. What was left of the hull sank in shallow water. [3] [9]
The Zon and Snelheid were abandoned without any effort to destroy them, so the captors obtained all the equipage of their prizes. Two Indian princes, banished by the Batavian government from Ternate and Tidor, were found at Saldanha and received as guests on a man-of-war. On the 24th the fleet sailed, leaving nothing afloat but the two empty packets, so old as not to be worth taking. Johnstone sent the troops on to India under Captain Alms with five of his best ships, and stood away for England with the Romney, Jupiter, Diana, Jason, Terror, Infernal, and the Dutch prizes. On the morning of the 22nd of July a report of thirty-three sail off Saldanha reached Cape Town. Burgher lieutenant Van Reenen was hurried off with mounted men; he had not proceeded far when sailors told him an English fleet was in possession. A messenger ordered the Hout Bay skippers back to Table Bay, close in shore, and if attacked to run aground and destroy. The Company lost six ships altogether to the English. In August the burghers were permitted to return home. The governor reported that their alacrity had surprised him; Colonel Conway expressed great satisfaction. Defence was left to Pondicherry, the Dutch troops, and a small corps of halfbreeds and Khoikhoi raised in the country and stationed in Cape Town. In November forty cannon and a large supply of ammunition arrived from Mauritius. [3] [9]
Wartime Loan and Little Paris — August–November 1781
From the moment Pondicherry stepped ashore, Cape Town became a different place. Apart from protection, the French brought prosperity. Everybody made money — from the shoe-shine boy on the Parade and the free-black wigmaker in Dorpstraat to the waggon-maker in Rondebosch and the wine merchant in Wynberg. Dressmakers and milliners worked overtime; tailors hired larger premises. Even for advocate Boers they had to cut a fitting uniform, as captain of the Pennisten. One ball after another was offered in honour of the French protectors. The elegant Vicomte de Barras led Baroness van Plettenberg to the dance floor; young Barras behaved so badly that his colonel sent him packing. Cape Town gained the name of Little Paris. With the arrival of the French troops an expensive fashion of living was introduced into the town. It was probably the only time during his term when Van Plettenberg felt truly happy at the Cape. One must not think, however, that it was only feasting he did that winter. [3] [9]
The necessities of the government were pressing and the treasury was empty. No money could be expected from the mother country during the war. On the 6th of November 1781 the council of policy resolved to borrow from the colonists as much as was urgently needed, to pay interest monthly at the rate of half per cent, and to promise to repay the principal upon the arrival of the first outward bound fleet. Sufficient money was not to be obtained in this way, however, and after the 30th of April 1782 expenditure would be met by notes. November therefore put a wartime loan on the Castle table at half a per cent a month. Enough cash did not come. The seventh full installed year closed on that empty chest, not on a repaid principal. [3]
The war had also interrupted the mail to the Netherlands. The first chair’s March letter, and the fiscal’s February comments, still sat in the Castle. It would take a full year to despatch those answers. The four Cape names still sat in Holland, without those papers on a homeward ship. The Seventeen still had a committee of Amsterdam and Zeeland examining the 1779 clauses. Calendar 1781 did not yet put a directors’ answer on a Cape quay. It put war between the memorial and the reply. [3] [9]
English hulls no longer took meat at 2d. above the Company’s contract. Strangers now sat under a wartime maximum of 12s. a muid. Bode, Serrurier, and Fleck still sat the Reformed Cape; Kolver still sat Melk’s nave. Philip Kuys still sat Stellenbosch. Johannes Abraham Kuys still sat Waveren. Goldbach still sat Zwartland. Drakenstein’s pulpit sat empty from March. De Wet, Van Ryneveld, Brand, and Staring still sat their country chairs. Hacker still sat the second. Boers still sat the fiscal’s office, and from the winter a Pennisten captaincy. Plettenberg still sat the first, with a March request to be relieved still on the table. Gordon still sat the garrison. Van Jaarsveld still sat the eastern command, with the Fish cleared in July and the 5,300 head allowed in October. Pondicherry still sat the new hospital’s right wing. The key of the Indian seas still sat in Dutch hands, because Suffren had won the trial of speed, because Pondicherry had marched overland on the 3rd of July, and because Johnstone, learning from a captured Indiaman that the Cape was now too strong, had taken four hulls in Saldanha instead of a Castle. The seventh full installed year ended on those facts, without a third drostdy, without a repaid loan, without a Cape answer yet on a homeward ship, and with French soldiers in a hospital wing that eighty to a hundred men had been building for nearly nine years. [3] [7] [9]