Boer History1782 at the Cape of Good Hope: Paper Notes, the Grosvenor, Luxembourg Troops, and Official Shifts
Eighth Full Installed Year: Castle Continuity — 1782
Calendar 1782 opened as the eighth 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, and from the winter of 1781 a captain of the Pennisten besides. The four Cape names already heard in East-India House on the 16th of October 1779 had still been waiting in Holland when the seventh year closed. Jacobus van Reenen, Barend Jacob Artois, Tieleman Roos, and Nicholas Godfried Heyns had waited inside the war. The answers of the first chair and of the fiscal were not yet on a homeward ship when January opened. [3] [9]
In the country the inherited chairs still sat when the year opened. Olof Godlieb de Wet still sat Stellenbosch’s drostdy in January. Abraham Faure still sat the secretaryship under him. Daniel van Ryneveld still sat Swellendam in January. Christoffel Brand still sat the winter port. Damien Hugo Staring still sat the naval establishment in the first days, 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, Buffeljagts River, and the woodcutters’ post at Zwart River in Outeniqualand were still maintained. [3]
The pulpits of the eighth full installed year opened on the same three Cape names the directors had restored. The Rev. Johannes Frederik Bode, the Rev. Johannes Petrus Serrurier of Hanau, and the Rev. Christiaan Fleck still sat the Cape church. Stellenbosch still sat the Rev. Philip Kuys. Waveren still sat the Rev. Johannes Abraham Kuys. Zwartland still sat the Rev. Daniel Goldbach. Drakenstein’s pulpit still sat empty from March 1781, when Van der Spuy had been 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. 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. Calendar 1782 inherited that border as the seventh year had left it: the Fish cleared in July 1781, the 5,300 head allowed on the 9th of October, and no third drostdy written on the map. [3] [4]
The November loan still framed the Castle chest when January opened. Interest was to be paid monthly at half per cent. The principal was to be repaid upon the arrival of the first outward bound fleet. No such fleet had filled the chest. The Company’s ordinary traffic with the Netherlands had ceased. Neutral flags and French hulls sat the two ports instead of the old average of fifty-two Dutch ships a year. Revenue in 1781 had been £17,274; expenditure had long run ahead of that figure. Calendar 1782 therefore opened not on a repaid principal, but on a promise that the first outward fleet had not yet honoured. [3]
The roadstead still sat under war. The regiment of Pondicherry still sat the right wing of the new hospital it had entered on the 3rd of July 1781. Defence of the Cape remained with Pondicherry, the Dutch troops, and the small corps of halfbreeds and Khoikhoi raised in the country and stationed in Cape Town. Forty cannon and a large supply of ammunition had arrived from Mauritius in November. The wartime maximum still sat on strangers’ wheat at twelve shillings a muid. From the moment Pondicherry had stepped ashore, Cape Town had become a different place: Little Paris, with an expensive fashion of living, balls, and credit for house furniture that would later alarm Amsterdam. The treasury was empty. On the 6th of November 1781 the council of policy had 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 had not been obtained. Calendar 1782 therefore opened on that empty chest, on French soldiers in a hospital wing, and on a first chair whose March 1781 request to be relieved still had no homeward ship. [3] [9]
Staring, the Dane, and Country Chairs — January–February 1782
In January 1782 the Danish ship Castle of Dansburg put into Table Bay, where an embargo was laid upon her. Staring and Captain De Lille went on board to communicate the decision of the council, when the Danish skipper ordered sail to be set and tried to get away. Fire was then opened upon the ship from the forts, upon which the skipper obliged Staring to stand in the most dangerous position. He did so with the utmost composure, although the shot was flying thick around him. In a few minutes the Dane was obliged to surrender. [3]
But Staring, brave in front of cannon balls, feared the result of the inquiry that was being made into his alleged peculations, and within a week of this event he requested the council of policy to allow him to take his discharge. This was granted, much to the dissatisfaction of the directors when they were informed of it, and he left for Europe in a neutral ship. He was succeeded as head of the naval establishment by Justinus van Gennep, recently skipper of the Middelburg — the only one of the five Indiamen at Saldanha who had had combustibles ready on the 21st of July. The old skipper therefore left South Africa before the fiscal. January put a brave man off the naval chair, and put the Middelburg’s skipper on it. [3]
In February 1782 the country chairs moved. Olof Godlieb de Wet was promoted to be master of the warehouses, and was succeeded as landdrost of Stellenbosch and Drakenstein by Daniel van Ryneveld, who was transferred from Swellendam. Constantyn van Nuld Onkruydt succeeded as landdrost of Swellendam. Faure still sat the Stellenbosch secretaryship under the new landdrost. Brand still sat Simon’s Town. The February settlement therefore took De Wet off the drostdy he had held since December 1778, put Van Ryneveld on Stellenbosch, and put a new name on Swellendam. The directors had already, in May 1777, insisted that a landdrost should be chosen from the civil — not from the military — branch of their service. Onkruydt sat that civil chair. [3]
The Castle still sat the same first and second chairs. Gordon still sat the garrison. De Lille still sat next after him. Pondicherry still sat the hospital wing. The seamen and mechanics now sat under Van Gennep. February did not put a third drostdy on the Fish. It put a warehouse master in De Wet’s place at the Castle stores, and it put Van Ryneveld’s old Swellendam chair under Onkruydt. The eighth full installed year had already changed two country drostdys and the naval establishment before the replies to the burgher charges had a ship. [3]
Replies Leave the Castle — 1 April 1782
Owing to the war with England there had been no communication between South Africa and the Netherlands for more than a year. The first chair’s reply, dated the 21st of March 1781, and the fiscal’s comments, dated the 2nd of February 1781, had sat in the Castle through Suffren, through Saldanha, through the November loan, and through January’s Dane. It was not until the 1st of April 1782 that the replies of the officers of the Cape government to the charges made against them by the burghers could be sent away. April therefore put those papers on a ship at last. The four Cape names in Holland had waited from October 1779 to that sailing. [3] [9]
When these documents reached the Netherlands they were referred by the directors to the committee which had the case under examination. One of them attracted special attention. This was the statement of the fiscal, the tone of which convinced the directors that Mr. Boers was not an officer who could safely be left in power. Calendar 1782 did not take him off the fiscal’s office. It put his February language on a ship that Amsterdam would read. He still sat the independent fiscal’s chair, and he still sat the Pennisten captaincy, through the rest of the year. [3] [9]
The principles of Mr. Boers had already been heard in the Castle. Another instance of the manner in which he put them in practice sat inside the war. There was such a scarcity of blankets and rough cloth in the colony that the slaves were almost naked. Several enterprising persons formed the idea of manufacturing blankets and cloth at the Cape, and a company was got together prepared to risk the necessary capital. There was coarse wool to be had in plenty, and a burgher named Frederik Heyneman, who was living in the village of Stellenbosch, and who had been a weaver before he came to this country, was engaged to commence the work. All was in readiness, and only permission was needed from the government. The company — Tobias Christiaan Ronnekamp, Jan Frederik Kirsten, Olof Godlieb de Wet, and Gerrit Hendrik Cruywagen, all in the government service, and the burghers Jan Meyndert Cruywagen, Jan Serrurier, Jan Bottiger, and Gerrit Hendrik Meyer — applied to the council for the necessary leave. All the members were willing, except Mr. Boers, who denounced the project of establishing manufactures in a colony as little short of treason, and succeeded in thwarting the plan. The slaves remained almost naked. The wool remained unspun. [3]
While the statements of the officials were on the way to Europe, the Assembly of Seventeen met. The delegate Roos had died, but Messrs. Van Reenen, Artois, and Heyns were still in Amsterdam. They delivered to the directors another memorial containing further charges against the Cape officials, supported by numerous documents. The memorial and its annexures were referred to the committee of investigation. The directors resolved to instruct the government at the Cape to do everything in its power, consistently with the Company’s interests, to smooth over matters and to allay the discontent of the burghers. But they did not explain how that was to be effected without making concessions or amending the system under which their officers were paid, so that such instructions were practically of no value. Calendar 1782 therefore put a second memorial on the Amsterdam table, and put a smoothing instruction on a Cape desk, without taking Boers off his chair and without granting the colonists liberty to trade on their own account. [3] [9]
Paper Notes and Luxembourg — April–May 1782
The necessities of the government remained pressing and the treasury remained empty. No money could be expected from the mother country during the continuance of the war. The November loan at half per cent a month had not filled the chest. Sufficient money was not to be obtained in that way, and after the 30th of April 1782 expenditure was met by notes, which in a short time were issued to the amount of £185,044. This was the introduction of a system of equalising revenue and expenditure that for nearly half a century caused great confusion in commercial transactions. A few years later notes to the amount of £165,180 were redeemed, either in specie or by bills on Holland, but further issues were afterwards made. In 1795 the amount of such paper outstanding, with no security except the promise of the government to pay when it could, was £122,782. The notes offered great temptation to unprincipled persons to defraud the uneducated farmers of the interior. They were easily forged, and in this way many persons became the victims of swindlers. In the distant districts the cartoon sheets did not stand wear. Lower values became defaced. A man who took a note on a northern farm could not be sure it would still be accepted in Cape Town, and a man who took a Cape Town note inland could not be sure it was not a forgery. April therefore put a legal tender on the Castle’s bills, and put a swindle on the wagon road. [3] [4]
To provide for a currency at the Cape, Governor Van Plettenberg in May 1782 authorised an issue of 49,696 rix-dollars (about £9,539) in paper or cardboard notes, upon no other security than the good faith of the government. Each rix-dollar thus created was estimated at 8 skillings or 48 stivers, equivalent to rather more than 4 shillings sterling. The original issue was subsequently increased to 925,219 rix-dollars (about £185,043), which matches the Castle’s short-time total. The cartoon money was a great inconvenience. It did not stand wear and tear; the lower values especially very soon became defaced and damaged and were only accepted in business transactions with caution and suspicion. Worn-out notes were continually called in by government and replaced by new, but in the distant districts the extremes of dilapidation took place before it was possible to exchange them for new. April put notes on the expenditure. May put a numbered rix-dollar issue on the same paper. [3] [4]
In May 1782 the garrison was strengthened by the arrival of a body of troops termed the regiment of Luxembourg, raised in France, but in the pay of the Dutch East India Company. This regiment remained at the Cape through the rest of the calendar year, in addition to Pondicherry, which was sent to assist the Dutch but was not in the Company’s pay, and in addition to Gordon’s Dutch troops. May therefore put a second foreign regiment on the roadstead that Suffren had saved. The wartime maximum still sat on the same table: 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, beef two pence a pound, and mutton a penny a pound. Luxembourg ate on that scale. Pondicherry ate on that scale. The empty chest now paid them in notes. [3]
The key of the Indian seas still sat in Dutch hands because Pondicherry had marched overland on the 3rd of July 1781, because Johnstone had taken four hulls in Saldanha instead of a Castle, and because Luxembourg now sat beside them. 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. One ball after another was offered in honour of the French protectors. With the arrival of the French troops an expensive fashion of living had been introduced into the town, and every one was now striving to become possessed of a handsome house filled with costly furniture and a retinue of useless slaves. All kinds of European wares were introduced in Danish ships, and were sold at enormous profits. Money seemed plentiful, and every one forgot that the apparent prosperity was based upon the insecure foundation of military expenditure. Luxembourg’s May arrival did not end Little Paris. It added another foreign regiment to the demand that already sat on wheat, wine, beef, and credit. [3] [9]
A French commissariat officer, M. Percheron, resided at the Cape, and purchased large quantities of provisions at high prices. Other nationalities also had agents here for the same purpose, though their requirements were not nearly so great. Next to the French in commercial dealings in South Africa at this time were the Danes, whose agent in Cape Town was the burgher Hendrik Justinus de Wet. Many new trading houses had been established by burghers. In Cape Town there was a display of prosperity which astonished strangers. European and Indian wares in the greatest variety and of the most costly description were introduced in large quantities by Danish ships; and though the prices asked were exorbitant, they commanded a ready sale. The defective means of communication with the interior attracted greater attention than at any previous period. Paper notes, easily forged, now sat between that interior and the town’s exorbitant wares. The uneducated farmers of the distant districts took cartoon money that did not stand wear, and they took forged sheets besides. [3] [4]
Grosvenor Wreck — 4 August 1782
More noteworthy than any wreck of the Plettenberg years was the loss of the English East India Company’s ship Grosvenor, which was lost on the coast a few miles north of the Umzimvubu river in August 1782. The Grosvenor sailed from Trincomalee on the 18th of June, having on board one hundred and fifty souls, passengers and crew all told. Among the passengers were several officers of position in the English East India Company’s service: Colonel James, Mr. Hosea, Captain Adair, and Messrs. Williams, Taylor, and Newman. Colonel James was accompanied by his wife, and Mr. Hosea by his wife and three children. The other passengers were Captain Talbot of the royal navy, Colonel D’Espinette and Captain Olivier, French exchanged prisoners of war, Mrs. Logie, wife of the chief officer of the ship, and several children proceeding to England to be educated. [3]
The ship was believed to be still a day’s sail from the African coast, when at half past four in the morning of the 4th of August some seamen aloft saw land ahead. The fact was reported to the officer of the watch, who would not believe it. Presently the land was seen from the deck, though it was not yet daylight, and as the officer was still incredulous, a quartermaster ran below to the captain’s cabin and begged him to hasten up. Captain Coxon instantly gave orders to wear ship, but before that could be done the Grosvenor was in the breakers and struck heavily. [3]
A raft was made, but it broke adrift and was dashed to pieces. Two lascars then swam ashore with a lead line, by which means a hawser was stretched between the ship and the beach, and a number of men went safely along it. The wreck soon broke up, when a portion of the poop and quarter, upon which the passengers had crowded, drifted ashore. One hundred and thirty-six persons now found themselves on dry land; the remaining fourteen had been drowned. Some provisions were washed on the beach, and having collected these, on the third day after the disaster the whole party, except two men who preferred to remain where they were, set out in hope of being able to make their way to the Cape. They had sufficient food to last eight or nine days, and were provided with five or six cutlasses. A great many natives made their appearance, but instead of helping the distressed people, they robbed the lady passengers of their trinkets, and carried off all the iron they could find. [3]
Shortly after setting out, a quarrel arose with some natives, but it ended in a skirmish without a serious battle. Then the crew broke up into several parties, and the sturdiest pushed on ahead. The food of eight or nine days did not last a hundred and sixteen. Want of food became the walk. Six sailors, who had suffered very severe hardships, reached a farm on the Zwartkops river one hundred and sixteen days after the wreck, where they were treated with the utmost kindness. Five of them were sent on to Swellendam, where they arrived on the 4th of December. The lady passengers — Mrs James, Mrs Hosea, and Mrs Logie — were with their husbands and Captain Coxon when they were last seen by those who were rescued. Three girls — Misses Dennis, Wilmot, and Hosea — were also with this party. No trace of any of these has ever since been found, and there can hardly be a doubt that they all perished of hunger and fatigue. [3]
December therefore put five Grosvenor sailors on a Swellendam stoep, one hundred and sixteen days after a dawn watch that would not believe the land. The Castle had not yet sent the relief column when those five arrived. The two men who had stayed by the wreck were not among them. The ladies and the three girls were not among them. Calendar 1782 had already spent August, September, October, and November on that coast without a Cape waggon on the Kei. [3]
Victor, Zeepost, and Mulder’s Relief — September–December 1782
On the 24th of September 1782 the French corvette Victor, having anchored in the night too close to the breakers, was driven ashore in a north-west gale beyond the mouth of Salt River, and went to pieces. Nearly all of her crew were saved. September therefore put a French hull on the same beach-line that had already taken the Jonge Thomas in 1773 and the Ceres in 1776, while six Grosvenor sailors were still walking toward the Zwartkops. [3]
In September 1782 the Zeepost and the Feyenoord were sent to make another search of the south-eastern seaboard. The Company still had a strong desire to establish a station somewhere on that coast, after Delagoa Bay had been abandoned and after the garrison of Fort Lydzaamheid had reached Table Bay on the 18th of January 1781. September put those two packets on a four-month examination. Calendar 1782 did not yet put their officers’ report on a Castle table; it put them to sea. [3]
By order of the governor and council, a relief expedition, consisting of one hundred Europeans and three hundred Khoikhoi, was at once organised after the five sailors reached Swellendam on the 4th of December, with which two of the sailors returned toward the coast. Before reaching the Fish river, three more sailors and a lascar were met. Captain Hillegard Mulder, who was in command of the expedition, left the waggons at the Kei, and pushed on with a party on horseback, but was obliged to turn back by the hostile attitude of the Thembu. In the country beyond, six lascars and two black women who had been servants to the lady passengers were found. These stated that to the best of their belief all the other shipwrecked people had either been killed by the people of that coast or had perished of want and fatigue. They had been eyewitnesses of the death of many, but as they had left parties still struggling on behind, the fate of the others remained involved in mystery. [3]
December therefore put Mulder’s horsemen back from the Kei, with eight living names recovered beyond the Fish and with the ladies still missing. The Castle had done what a wartime council could do with a hundred Europeans and three hundred Khoikhoi. It had not brought Mrs James, Mrs Hosea, Mrs Logie, or the three girls into Swellendam. The eighth full installed year closed on that fact, as it closed on a French corvette already in pieces beyond Salt River, and on two packets still out on the south-eastern coast. [3]
Eighth Year Closes: Pulpits, Paper, and Wartime Chairs — 1782
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 still sat empty from March 1781. The eighth year did not put a new clergyman on a Cape chair. It put De Wet on the warehouses, Van Ryneveld on Stellenbosch, Onkruydt on Swellendam, and Van Gennep on the naval establishment. Faure still sat the secretaryship. Brand still sat the winter port. Hacker still sat the second. Boers still sat the fiscal’s office, with a Pennisten captaincy and with a manufacture he had called treason. Plettenberg still sat the first, with a March 1781 request to be relieved still somewhere on the water, and with a May rix-dollar issue on the Castle table. [3]
Gordon still sat the garrison. De Lille still sat next after him. Pondicherry still sat the hospital wing. Luxembourg still sat the May reinforcement. Van Jaarsveld still sat the eastern command, with the Fish still written as boundary and with the third drostdy still unbuilt. San still disturbed the northern farms. Percheron still bought provisions at high prices. Hendrik Justinus de Wet still sat the Danish agency. Little Paris still sat the Parade and Dorpstraat, while cartoon money sat the distant districts. The directors at Amsterdam became alarmed when they ascertained what large amounts were due in Holland for house furniture alone purchased on credit, and complained that the Cape was becoming known to travellers as Little Paris. [3] [9]
Van Reenen, Artois, and Heyns still sat in Amsterdam, with Roos dead, with a second memorial on the directors’ table, and with the Cape replies of the 1st of April somewhere on the same sea. The committee of Amsterdam and Zeeland still had the 1779 clauses. The smoothing instruction still had no concession behind it. Boers’s February language was on that water. The slaves were still almost naked, because a weaver in Stellenbosch had not been allowed to spin. The uneducated farmers of the interior were already taking forged notes. April had put paper on the expenditure; May had numbered it in rix-dollars. [3] [4] [9]
English hulls no longer took meat at 2d. above the Company’s contract. Strangers still sat under a wartime maximum of 12s. a muid. Notes, not specie, now met the Castle’s bills after the 30th of April. The Grosvenor’s five sailors sat in Swellendam from the 4th of December; Mulder’s horsemen had turned at the Kei; the ladies had no trace. The Victor had gone to pieces beyond Salt River on the 24th of September. The Zeepost and the Feyenoord had been sent in September to look for a station the directors still desired. Staring had left in a neutral ship. Luxembourg still sat beside Pondicherry. The eighth full installed year ended on those facts, without a third drostdy, without a repaid November loan, without a weaver’s blanket on a slave’s back, and with paper in the interior that a man could forge. [3] [4] [9]