Boer History1783 at the Cape of Good Hope: Meuron and Waldener, Boers’s Retirement, the Nicobar, and the Seventeen’s Report
Ninth Full Installed Year: Castle Continuity — 1783
Calendar 1783 opened as the ninth 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. His March 1781 request to be relieved still had no successor on a Table Bay quay. Pieter Hacker still sat the second chair. Willem Cornelis Boers still sat the fiscal’s office in January, detested as few men in South Africa have been, and from the winter of 1781 a captain of the Pennisten besides. The three Cape names still heard in Amsterdam — Jacobus van Reenen, Barend Jacob Artois, and Nicholas Godfried Heyns — had waited inside the war with Tieleman Roos already dead. The Cape replies of the 1st of April 1782 were in the committee’s hands. The ninth year therefore opened on a first chair who had asked to go, a fiscal whose February 1781 language Amsterdam had already read, and a memorial four years old. [3] [9]
In the country the inherited chairs still sat when January opened. Daniel van Ryneveld still sat Stellenbosch and Drakenstein, the drostdy he had taken from Olof Godlieb de Wet, now master of the warehouses. Abraham Faure still sat the secretaryship under him. Constantyn van Nuld Onkruydt still sat Swellendam. Christoffel Brand still sat the winter port. Justinus van Gennep still sat the naval establishment the old skipper Staring had left in a neutral ship. 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 Van Gennep. 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 ninth full installed year opened on the same 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 in the first months. 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 1783 inherited that border as the eighth 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 paper of 1782 still framed the Castle chest when January opened. After the 30th of April 1782 expenditure had been met by notes, which in a short time were issued to the amount of £185,044. In May the first chair had authorised 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 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. 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. In the distant districts the extremes of dilapidation took place before it was possible to exchange them for new. Uneducated farmers of the interior were already taking forgeries. 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. Calendar 1783 therefore opened not on a repaid November loan, but on notes that a man could forge, and on a promise the first outward fleet had not yet honoured. [3] [4]
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. The regiment of Luxembourg still sat the May 1782 reinforcement. Defence of the Cape remained with Pondicherry, Luxembourg, the Dutch troops, and the small corps of halfbreeds and Khoikhoi raised in the country and stationed in Cape Town. 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. A French commissariat officer, M. Percheron, still bought large quantities of provisions at high prices. Next to the French in commercial dealings sat the Danes, whose agent in Cape Town was the burgher Hendrik Justinus de Wet. Many new trading houses had been established by burghers. 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 ninth year therefore opened on French soldiers in a hospital wing, on Luxembourg still in pay, on notes in the interior, and on a first chair whose March 1781 request to be relieved still had no relief. [3] [9]
Meuron, Waldener, and Luxembourg’s Leave — January–April 1783
In January 1783 the Swiss regiment of Meuron, a strong body of troops in the pay of the Dutch Company, was stationed at the Cape to replace Luxembourg. Just before Luxembourg left, Meuron arrived. In February 1783 Luxembourg was sent to Ceylon. The May reinforcement of 1782 therefore sat only until the second month of the ninth year. February took a French-raised regiment off the Cape muster and put a Swiss regiment on it, still in Company pay, still under a Castle that had not yet seen a general peace. [3]
In the same February the French regiment of Waldener, also in the Company’s pay, arrived and formed a camp under canvas at Diep River. February therefore put two new names on the wartime road: Meuron in the rooms Luxembourg had used, and Waldener under canvas a few miles from the Castle. Diep River sat tents, not a hospital wing. The ninth year opened its second month on three foreign corps at once — Pondicherry still in the hospital, Meuron just in, Waldener just under canvas — and on Luxembourg already ordered east. [3]
In April of the same year Waldener left for Batavia. The canvas at Diep River came down. The French regiment in Company pay sat the Cape only from February to April. Pondicherry, which had been sent to assist the Dutch but was not in the pay of the Company, remained. It was not until after the conclusion of peace that Pondicherry would embark, and that sailing still sat ahead of this calendar. April therefore took Waldener off the Diep River sand and left Pondicherry in the hospital wing and Meuron on the Luxembourg chairs. [3]
Gordon still sat the garrison under those shifts. De Lille still sat next after him. Van Gennep still sat the naval establishment. The burghers who had come in at Suffren’s guns in June 1781 were long since back on their farms. The first chair had been surprised at their alacrity, and had tried to get a company of burghers stationed in the town, to be relieved monthly by others, but the duty to be permanent. In this he had not succeeded. Early in the ninth year that rotating company still did not sit. Defence still sat on hired Swiss, on Pondicherry not in Company pay, on Gordon’s Dutch infantry, and on the small corps of halfbreeds and Khoikhoi in Cape Town. The ninth year therefore changed the foreign names on the muster without putting a permanent burgher company on the Parade. [3]
Goldbach Dies and Boers Retires — March–April 1783
In March 1783 the Rev. Daniel Goldbach died. He had arrived from the Netherlands in April 1774 and had sat Zwartland from that month. The church was then for a time left to the care of a consulent. March therefore took a Netherland name off the Zwartland pulpit the ninth year had opened with, and put no successor on it. Bode, Serrurier, and Fleck still sat the Cape. Philip Kuys still sat Stellenbosch. Johannes Abraham Kuys still sat Waveren. Kolver still sat Melk’s nave. Drakenstein still sat empty from March 1781. The ninth year did not put a new clergyman on a Cape chair. It took Goldbach off Zwartland and left that congregation to a consulent. [3]
In April 1783 Boers retired from office. When the Cape replies of the 1st of April 1782 had reached the Netherlands they had been referred by the directors to the committee which had the case under examination. One of them had 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. They therefore agreed without hesitation to his request to resign his duties, but required him to furnish bail to the amount of a little over £1,000 if he should leave the colony for Europe before the charges against him were decided. April therefore took the independent fiscal off the chair he had sat since December 1774. Staring, brave in front of cannon balls, had already left South Africa before the fiscal. The ninth year put that sequence in order: the naval skipper first, the fiscal in April. [3] [9]
Jan Jacob Serrurier was instructed by the council to act as fiscal. April therefore put a new name on the independent fiscal’s chair, not yet a prince’s permanent appointment, but a Castle acting. The man who had spoken of unlettered peasants, who had quoted the 1657 wording of the first burgher councillor against a century of usage, who had treated released soldiers as if they and their descendants could be ordered back into service at the will of the government, no longer sat that office. The Pennisten captaincy sat without the fiscal who had had a uniform cut for it. The ninth year did not try Boers in a Cape court in April. It took him off the chair and put bail on any European sailing. [3]
The principles of Mr. Boers had already been heard in the Castle. During the war there had been such a scarcity of blankets and rough cloth in the colony that the slaves were almost naked. Several enterprising persons had formed the idea of manufacturing blankets and cloth at the Cape, and a company had been 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, had been engaged to commence the work. All had been in readiness, and only permission had been 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 — had applied to the council for the necessary leave. All the members had been willing, except Mr. Boers, who had denounced the project of establishing manufactures in a colony as little short of treason, and had succeeded in thwarting the plan. The slaves remained almost naked. The wool remained unspun. April took the man who had called a weaver treason off the fiscal’s chair. It did not put a loom in Stellenbosch. [3]
Van Reenen, Artois, and Heyns still sat in Amsterdam. They had already delivered a second memorial while the Cape replies were on the water. The directors had 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, without explaining how that was to be effected without making concessions or amending the system under which their officers were paid. April took Boers off his chair. It did not grant the colonists liberty to trade on their own account. It did not put seven burgher members in the council of policy. It did not send appeals to the Fatherland instead of to Batavia. The committee of Amsterdam and Zeeland still had the 1779 clauses. The ninth year put an acting fiscal on the Castle table and left the thirty-seven clauses in committee until the close of the year. [3] [9]
Peace Preliminaries, Drought, and the Roadstead — 1783
Early in 1783 the preliminaries of a treaty of peace had been arranged with Great Britain. It was admitted on all sides that a garrison of at least two thousand men was required to secure the Cape against surprise in the event of another war, and that additional fortifications must be built. The directors had narrowly escaped losing the country altogether, and they were now aware that the burghers were not in a position to defend it from foreign attacks. The rotating burgher company the first chair had wanted in the town still did not sit. Early in the ninth year, therefore, peace sat as a preliminary on European paper, while the Castle still sat hired Swiss, Pondicherry not in Company pay, and Gordon’s infantry, short of the two thousand the directors now named. [3]
During the war with England the Company’s trade had been almost annihilated. Its fleets were laid up in harbours or were swept from the seas. It was compelled to employ ships under neutral flags to convey cargoes to and from India, and to prevent the utter ruin of its dependencies was obliged to allow any one who chose to buy and sell freely in its foreign possessions. There was hardly a nation in Europe that did not furnish adventurers to take advantage of this condition of things. The list of ships that put into the two open ports of South Africa during the four years 1781–1784 showed it very clearly. Out of an average yearly number of 135 ships, only 29 were Dutch, and many of those were owned by individuals or were men-of-war belonging to the national government. French, Danish, Swedish, Austrian, and other flags sat Table Bay and Simon’s Bay in numbers the old fifty-two Dutch average had never had to count. Calendar 1783 therefore sat a roadstead full of strangers, and a Company flag in the minority. [3]
In September 1783 peace was concluded, but the old order of things could not at once be restored. September therefore wrote peace on a European instrument and left the Cape still under wartime chairs: Meuron in pay, Pondicherry still in the hospital wing, notes still meeting expenditure, Percheron still buying, Danish ships still landing costly wares. The wartime maximum of twelve shillings a muid on strangers’ wheat had been a war scale. Peace did not at once put the old contract prices back on the stores. It did not at once put fifty-two Dutch hulls in the two bays. It wrote an end to the shooting without writing an end to the paper, the hired Swiss, or Little Paris. [3]
During these years it was not possible to send much produce to Europe, though a considerable quantity of provisions was forwarded to the Company’s establishments in India, for the use of the garrisons there. Three or four hundred casks of beef and pork salted at the Cape formed part of these shipments. The years 1783 and 1784 were marked by severe drought in the western parts of the colony, and the grain crops were very poor; but abundance of rain fell in the east, and meat and butter were plentiful and cheap. The ninth year therefore put a western drought on the wheat lands that fed the roadstead, and put cheap meat and butter on the eastern farms Van Jaarsveld still commanded. The Castle could salt casks for India. It could not fill a grain magazine from the west. [3]
The defective means of communication with the interior attracted greater attention than at any previous period, and the council of policy was desired to adopt measures for making good roads, that the inhabitants might more easily exchange the productions of the country and obtain foreign wares. The subject of a free coasting trade came also into prominence, and a memorial upon it was addressed to the government. Cape Town still displayed a prosperity which astonished strangers. The women on the farms still showed a firmer attachment to what they held to be their political rights than a mere count of Danish bales would suggest. Neither men nor women were disposed to let the 1779 question rest because Percheron paid high prices and Danish ships sold exorbitant wares. The ninth year therefore sat Little Paris on the Parade and Dorpstraat, and sat a western drought behind it, and sat a committee report still unwritten in Amsterdam until the close. [3] [9]
Nicobar Wreck — 11 July 1783
On the 11th of July 1783 the Danish outward-bound ship Nicobar ran ashore on the coast a little to the eastward of Cape Agulhas, and became a total wreck. Only eleven of her crew managed to get to land. July therefore put a Danish name on the Agulhas beach, four months after Goldbach’s death and three months after Boers’s retirement, and put eleven living men on that shore. The rest of the Nicobar’s company did not sit a Cape hospital. They sat the surf. [3]
The ninth year already knew wrecks. On the 24th of September 1782 the French corvette Victor had gone to pieces beyond Salt River. On the 4th of August 1782 the English East India Company’s Grosvenor had been lost a few miles north of the Umzimvubu. Five of her sailors had reached Swellendam on the 4th of December. Captain Hillegard Mulder had turned back from the Kei. The ladies — Mrs James, Mrs Hosea, Mrs Logie — and the three girls had no trace. Calendar 1783 did not put those ladies into a Cape house. It inherited Mulder’s empty report, and in July it added a Danish total wreck east of Agulhas to the same coast ledger. [3]
Eleven men on the Agulhas coast were not a relief column. They were what the surf left. The Castle’s wartime council had already spent a hundred Europeans and three hundred Khoikhoi on the Grosvenor’s missing. July did not organise another such riding for the Nicobar. It wrote eleven names as saved, and wrote the ship as a total wreck, a little to the eastward of the cape that had taken so many hulls. The Danish agent De Wet still sat Cape Town’s commercial table. The Nicobar had been outward-bound, not a Cape packet. The ninth year put her on the southern beach and left the eleven to the land. [3]
Seventeen Adopt the Report — 3 December 1783
It was not until towards the close of 1783, four years after the matter had been placed in their hands, that the committee of investigation sent in a report. They had come to the conclusion that the complainants could not be held to represent the whole body of burghers at the Cape, and that the charges against the officials had not been proved. Van Reenen, Artois, and Heyns had spoken on the 16th of October 1779 for four hundred and four signatures. The first chair had answered that there were nearly three thousand burghers in the country. The committee took that arithmetic. It did not take the thirty-seven clauses as the voice of the whole colony. Four years of war, of Suffren, of Saldanha, of paper notes, and of Little Paris sat between the memorial and the report. The report sat on that interval. [3] [9]
The committee recommended that no changes in the regulations regarding commerce should be made until a general European peace, and that consequently the colonists should not be granted liberty to trade on their own account with Europe and India. They objected to allowing an appeal direct from the high court of justice at the Cape to the supreme court of the Netherlands instead of to the court at Batavia, as that would practically remove the Cape from the jurisdiction of the Company. They approved of reconstituting the high court of justice, so as to make it consist of six servants of the Company beside the president and six burghers, instead of nine servants of the Company and three burghers as formerly. They were in favour of allowing the Company’s servants to have gardens for their own use, but not to sell produce from them. They left to the fiscal his perquisites, including the fee of one shilling and four pence on every muid of corn or meal sold to foreigners; but they proposed to restrict to £40 his power of compounding cases instead of bringing them into court. [3]
On the 3rd of December 1783 this report was adopted by the Assembly of Seventeen, and was communicated to the Cape government by the next ships that sailed. At the same time the directors resolved not to prohibit the banishment of useless persons from the colony, but to instruct the governor and council of policy to use this power sparingly and with discretion, and to give the person deported the choice of removal to Europe or India. Buitendag’s black scavengers of January 1779 still sat behind that clause. The Seventeen did not take the power off the Castle. They told the Castle to use it sparingly, and they put a choice of Europe or India on the deported man. December therefore wrote a report onto a homeward instruction, four years and a month after the four delegates had stood in East-India House. [3]
Using the prevailing war conditions as an excuse for not giving in to the demands of the Cape names, only insignificant concessions were offered. Of these the chief ones were the reconstitution of the high court, by increasing burgher members and cutting the number of Company servants, and prohibiting Company officials from selling products from their gardens. The banishment of undesirable elements from the colony, one of the burghers’ most serious complaints, was not eliminated. On only one point did the commission agree with the men who had signed in 1779: advocate Boers was no good, and had to go. That point April had already taken. Moreover, the request of the first chair to be relieved of his duties was granted, though in his case it was done with honour and warm thanks for the services rendered. December wrote that honour onto an Amsterdam minute. It did not put a new governor on a Table Bay quay in the ninth year. [3] [9]
This result of their complaints gave great dissatisfaction to the colonists. Since 1779 the condition of affairs had greatly altered, as there had never before been such a demand for produce as that created by the large garrison and the French forces in the East. Percheron still purchased at high prices. Other nationalities also had agents, though their requirements were not nearly so great. Next to the French sat the Danes and De Wet. New trading houses sat. Costly wares sat. Roads were asked for. A coasting-trade memorial sat. But the burghers of South Africa, though keenly alive to the advantages of material prosperity, have at every period of their history shown a firmer attachment to what they hold to be their political rights and liberties. There have indeed been times when considerable parties of men have wavered between money and freedom from misrule, but the women have never hesitated in rejecting prosperity at the price of oppression or disdainful treatment. And perhaps nowhere else in the world have women the influence that they have on South African farms. On this occasion neither men nor women were disposed to let the question rest. December therefore put a Seventeen’s minute on a ship, and put dissatisfaction under Little Paris. [3]
The government resorted to various petty persecutions, but the party opposed to it increased in strength. The smoothing instruction of 1782 had had no concession behind it. The December report had a high court of six and six, a garden not for sale, a compounding limit of £40, a banishment clause softened into discretion and a choice of ports, and a fiscal already off his chair. It did not have free trade with Europe and India. It did not have seven burgher seats in the council of policy. It did not have appeals to the Fatherland. It did not have a clearly published law-book beyond what the first chair had already said was being collected. Van Reenen, Artois, and Heyns still sat in Amsterdam when the Seventeen adopted the paper. The ninth year put that paper on the next ships. It did not put the 1779 names back on a Cape beach. [3] [9]
Ninth Year Closes: Meuron, an Acting Fiscal, and a Report on the Water — 1783
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. Zwartland sat a consulent from March, Goldbach dead. Drakenstein’s pulpit still sat empty from March 1781. The ninth year did not put a new clergyman on a Cape chair. It put Jan Jacob Serrurier on the fiscal’s office as the council’s acting, with Boers off the chair from April and with bail on any European sailing before the charges were decided. Hacker still sat the second. Van Ryneveld still sat Stellenbosch. Onkruydt still sat Swellendam. Faure still sat the secretaryship. Brand still sat the winter port. Van Gennep still sat the naval establishment. Plettenberg still sat the first, with a request to be relieved now granted in Amsterdam with honour, and with no successor yet on the quay. [3] [9]
Gordon still sat the garrison. De Lille still sat next after him. Pondicherry still sat the hospital wing. Meuron still sat the Swiss chairs Luxembourg had left in February. Waldener’s canvas at Diep River had come down in April. 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 already on the directors’ table, and with the Cape replies of the 1st of April 1782 long since read. The committee of Amsterdam and Zeeland had at last written. The Seventeen had adopted the writing on the 3rd of December. The next ships carried it. Boers’s February language had already taken him off the chair. The slaves were still almost naked, because a weaver in Stellenbosch had not been allowed to spin. The uneducated farmers of the interior were still taking forged notes. Western grain had been very poor. Eastern meat and butter had been plentiful and cheap. Three or four hundred casks of salted beef and pork had gone toward India. Of an average 135 ships, only 29 had been Dutch. [3] [4] [9]
Peace had been concluded in September, but the old order of things could not at once be restored. English hulls no longer took the Cape as a wartime prize sitting just over the horizon, yet the two thousand men the directors now named as a standing garrison did not yet sit, and the additional fortifications did not yet sit. The Nicobar’s eleven had reached land east of Agulhas on the 11th of July; the rest of that Danish company had not. Luxembourg had gone to Ceylon in February. Waldener had gone to Batavia in April. Pondicherry still sat. Meuron still sat. Notes, not specie, still met the Castle’s bills. The ninth 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, without seven burgher seats in the council of policy, and with a Seventeen’s report on the water that granted a high court of six and six and did not grant the trade the 404 had asked. [3] [4] [9]