Boer History1785 at the Cape of Good Hope: Van de Graaff Installed, Seventeen’s Changes, and Graaff Reinet Named
First Year of a Soldier-Governor: Inherited Chairs — 1785
Calendar 1785 opened with Joachim van Plettenberg still in the first chair, a Friesland baron whose March 1781 request to be relieved had already been granted in Amsterdam with honour and warm thanks when the Seventeen adopted the committee report on the 3rd of December 1783. No successor had sat a Table Bay quay through the tenth full installed year. The soldier named to take that chair — Cornelis Jacob van de Graaff, lieutenant-colonel and controller general of the fortifications in Holland — was already on the water. January therefore opened on a first chair who had been thanked and not yet replaced, and on a military officer already approaching the coast. Pieter Hacker still sat the second chair. Jan Jacob Serrurier sat the fiscal’s office as a permanent officer from November 1784, with Willem Cornelis Boers already off that chair from April 1783 and with bail of a little over £1,000 on any European sailing before the charges against him were decided. The three Cape names still heard in Amsterdam — Jacobus van Reenen, Barend Jacob Artois, and Nicholas Godfried Heyns — still sat in Holland, with Tieleman Roos already dead, and with two new memorials forwarded in December 1784 still on the water toward them. [3] [9]
In the country the inherited chairs still sat when January opened. Daniel van Ryneveld still sat Stellenbosch and Drakenstein. Constantyn van Nuld Onkruydt still sat Swellendam. Abraham Faure still sat the secretaryship under Van Ryneveld. Christoffel Brand still sat the winter port. Justinus van Gennep still sat the naval establishment. Colonel Robert Jacob Gordon still sat the garrison he had taken in February 1780, now with colonel’s rank over some five hundred Dutch infantry. Captain Carel Matthys Willem de Lille still sat next after Gordon. Major Philip Herman Gilquin still sat the works he had directed since June 1779. The Swiss regiment of Meuron still sat the chairs Luxembourg had left. The French regiment of Pondicherry no longer sat the hospital wing. 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 opening year sat the names the tenth year had closed on, with one chair already marked for death in February. The Rev. Johannes Petrus Serrurier of Hanau and the Rev. Christiaan Fleck still sat the Cape church, the Rev. Johannes Frederik Bode already dead from July 1784, the town down to two. Stellenbosch still sat the Rev. Philip Kuys when January opened. Drakenstein now sat the Rev. Robert Nicholas Aling from April 1784, after three empty years. Waveren still sat the Rev. Johannes Abraham Kuys. Zwartland still sat a consulent, the Rev. Daniel Goldbach already dead from March 1783. 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. San marauders still disturbed the Nieuwveld, the Sneeuwberg, and the Winterberg. Notes, not specie, still met the Castle’s bills after the 30th of April 1782. Little Paris still sat the Parade and Dorpstraat after Pondicherry’s embarkation of April 1784, while Meuron was not Pondicherry’s match as a public entertainer. Western drought had sat 1783 and 1784. The two memorials of December 1784 — signed by M. Bergh, C. Maasdorp, G. H. Meyer, J. P. Warnecke, the Myburghs, De Villiers, Groeneveld, Louw, and Roos — were still sailing toward the three delegates. January therefore opened on a Castle waiting for a soldier, a fiscal already permanent, a French regiment already gone, and a burgher paper already aimed past East-India House at the States General. [3] [7] [9]
Van de Graaff Ashore and Installed — 22 January and 14 February 1785
On the 22nd of January 1785 Colonel Van de Graaff stepped ashore, fit as a fiddle, with his wife Hester Cornelia Reynet, eighteen-year-old son Sebastiaan, daughters Anna Geertruida and Agneta Clara, and junior Nicolaas, all bouncing with vitality. He had been born on the 30th of March 1734, had joined the cavalry as a youngster, had switched to the engineers, and had risen to controller general of fortifications. At thirty-two, stationed in Woerden, he had married Hester, daughter of Captain-Engineer Reynet and Anne Madeleine, Countess de Rayneval. His father Sebastiaan had been a major of the dragoons until bad eyesight took him off the service, and had married Geertruid van Vinceler. The family name was said to come from an illegitimate son of Count William VI of Holland in the fifteenth century, christened Evert and made lord of Hoogwoude and Aertswoude, who began to call himself Van de Graaff. January therefore put a soldier of that house on a Table Bay quay, with a countess’s daughter and four children, in the first month of a year that still sat Plettenberg in the Castle. [3] [9]
On the 14th of February 1785 he took over the administration. Plettenberg retired the same day. The new man had the reputation of an able military officer, but his qualifications were small for the first chair of the Cape colony. He was arbitrary and headstrong in disposition, violent in temper, and utterly careless in business matters. Where Plettenberg had been proud, and not firm enough to subordinate an aristocratic heart, Van de Graaff showed the same qualities more conspicuously: haughty, without sympathy for the new spirit of freedom, and closed even to the right of common burghers to complain. He was an excellent soldier, and was therefore put in the chair. In addition to the salary and perquisites of his predecessor, which amounted to about £3,650, he had a special allowance of £1,500 a year. He had the official residence in the castle, the house in the gardens, and the country seat at Newlands. He was provided with carriages and horses, and had the produce of the farm Visser’s Hok, besides the established table allowances. February therefore wrote a soldier-governor onto the first chair, and wrote Plettenberg off it, on the same day. [3] [9]
The first article of his commission instructed him to restore the excited burghers to calmness, peacefulness and unity, and, if possible, to cause all complaints to stop. The second main instruction was putting the Cape in a better condition of defence. In one of their first proclamations the Cape names had hoped to find in the new governor their Verlosser — deliverer. That hope had been written five months before the man’s arrival. The same optimistic anticipation had moved them initially not to send a new memorial to the Netherlands before having made his acquaintance. That they had despatched it all the same, in December 1784, had been due to the behaviour of newly appointed Fiscal Serrurier, a man the petitioners wrote of as of no integrity and no experience, who might be called to govern them if Van de Graaff died on the voyage. He did not die on the voyage. He stepped ashore on the 22nd of January. February put him in the chair with those two articles in his pocket: calm the burghers, and arm the bay. [3] [9]
The Lords Seventeen — by now in close co-operation with Stadholder Prince William V of Orange — had appointed a soldier as governor of the Cape settlement. They had narrowly escaped losing the country altogether in the late war, and they were now aware that the burghers were not in a position to defend it from foreign attacks. 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 resolved to send out a military officer of rank and experience, to station here a large body of troops as a depot for India, and to employ those troops in the construction of necessary works. In concurrence with the States General they had selected Van de Graaff. February therefore did not put a merchant-governor on the first chair. It put an engineer-colonel who enjoyed the confidence of the stadtholder, and it put him on a Castle that still sat Meuron, Gordon’s five hundred, and Gilquin’s works, with Pondicherry already gone and with the two thousand not yet sitting. [3] [9]
Plettenberg Leaves; Kuys Dies; a New Deputation — February–April 1785
In February 1785 the Rev. Philip Kuys of Stellenbosch died. The post he had taken in April 1777, after five years of a consulent’s care following Appeldoorn’s death of September 1772, went back to a consulent. The clergyman of Drakenstein — Aling, ten months in the charge — attended the Stellenbosch church for a time. Cape Town still sat two Reformed clergymen, Serrurier of Hanau and Fleck. Waveren still sat Johannes Abraham Kuys. Zwartland still sat a consulent. The Lutheran nave still sat Kolver, paid by Melk’s congregation. February therefore wrote a Reformed death onto Stellenbosch in the same month it wrote a soldier onto the first chair, and it wrote the second-oldest country congregation back to a visiting pulpit. [3]
In March 1785 a new deputation departed for the Netherlands, among them Hillegard Mulder and Marthinus Adriaan Bergh. The fresh memorials of December 1784 were still sailing. Van Reenen, Artois, and Heyns still sat in Amsterdam. The last papers from the Cape had not yet been laid before the States General. Van de Graaff therefore had some breathing space in which he was able to tackle the job he truly mastered, without hampering conditions. The improvements he introduced for the fortifications were numerous. He displayed an untiring energy in designing and erecting new batteries, and having other ones repaired. He saw to a more intensive drilling of the troops, and practised his artillery in firing with red-hot cannon balls. When he arrived the construction of the Amsterdam battery was already so far advanced that he was unable to alter the design, though he considered it faulty. He therefore completed it. March put a soldier-governor on the works, with Meuron still sitting, and with a new deputation already on the water. [3] [9]
On the 10th of April 1785 ex-Governor van Plettenberg left the Cape as admiral of a return fleet. He settled with his Cornelia in the country estate Windesheim, near Zwolle, capital of the province Overijssel. The tenth full installed year had closed on two memorials on the water and on a soldier already named. April took the Friesland baron off the quay, eleven years after the Prince’s commission of the 18th of May 1774, and fourteen years after he had first sat as acting head on the 12th of August 1771. He had been another oppressor in the burgher telling of it: his way of dealing with those who were discontented had been to compel them to go to Batavia as sailors or soldiers, which free burghers held illegal, liable to military service only within the borders of the colony and not abroad. April did not try that case again. It put him on a homeward fleet as admiral of the year, and it left the soldier-governor in the Castle with Hacker still second, Serrurier still fiscal, and the memorials still not yet on a States General table. [3] [7] [9]
The same year the long effort to plant the Cape Flats was abandoned in despair. For eleven years, with one short interval, every winter much labour had been expended upon it. The directors were by this time satisfied that Table Bay was in no danger of silting up. A commission of nautical men appointed to examine it carefully sent in a report that within the preceding half century, so far from its filling up with sand, the water had become deeper. Calendar 1785 therefore wrote an old winter labour off the flats, in the same months it wrote a new soldier onto the batteries. The sand did not sit a plantation. The bay sat deeper water. The first chair sat an engineer. [3]
Brederode Wreck, Serrurier’s Death, Borcherds, and Drought — May 1785
In the night between the 3rd and 4th of May 1785 the Company’s homeward-bound ship Brederode struck on a reef off Cape Agulhas, and went to pieces. Most of the crew got away in boats, but twelve lives were lost. None of her cargo was saved. May therefore put a Company hull on the Agulhas reef, four months after a soldier had stepped ashore, and put twelve deaths on the Castle table where the Sévère of January 1784 had put none. The tenth year had written a French 64 on Blueberg beach on a missed stay, and a Company Hoop on Mouille Point in the night of the 7th of July, with one man lost. The ninth year had written the Danish outward-bound Nicobar a little to the eastward of Agulhas, with only eleven of her crew on land. May 1785 wrote Agulhas again, and wrote a homeward Company ship, and wrote twelve. [3]
Agulhas was not Blueberg and was not Mouille Point. It was the southern reef, off the cape the homeward ships had to weather, far from the Castle look-outs that had watched the Sévère miss stays and the Hoop run ashore in the night. The Brederode was a Company ship homeward, not a French two-decker and not a Danish outward-bound. Van Gennep still sat the naval establishment. Brand still sat the winter port. Most of the crew sat boats. Twelve did not. No cargo sat a beach store. May wrote her as gone to pieces, and it wrote the year as a year that took a Company homeward hull in the same week it would take a fiscal off the chair. [3]
In May 1785 the fiscal Serrurier died. He had sat the office as the council’s acting from April 1783, and as a permanent officer from the prince of Orange since November 1784. May took that chair into vacancy. The council nominated one of its members to act provisionally. Boers was already off the chair from April 1783, with bail if he sailed for Europe before the charges were decided. The burghers who had written Serrurier as of no integrity and no experience did not take his death as a deliverance into a better fiscal. They took a vacant chair, in the same month their last memorial was laid before the States General. May 1785 therefore wrote a fiscal death onto the Castle, and wrote no successor from home onto the quay. [3] [9]
The same month the Rev. Meent Borcherds, who had recently arrived from Holland, was appointed third clergyman of the Cape. Since Van de Graaff’s arrival there had not been many changes in the staff of clergymen. Bode’s death of July 1784 had left the town at two. Philip Kuys’s death of February had left Stellenbosch to Aling as consulent. May put a third Reformed name back on the Cape church, five months after a soldier had stepped ashore, and four years after Fleck had been inducted to fill the chair Kroonenburg’s pension of December 1778 had emptied. Serrurier of Hanau and Fleck still sat. Kolver still sat Melk’s nave. Johannes Abraham Kuys still sat Waveren. Zwartland still sat a consulent. May therefore wrote a pulpit onto the Cape in the same month it wrote a wreck onto Agulhas and a death onto the fiscal’s office. [3]
The harvest of 1785 entirely failed, owing to protracted drought. Western grain had already been very poor in 1783 and 1784. Calendar 1785 wrote a third drought year onto the western barns, and wrote it as entire failure. There was not a muid of grain to be had when the Company’s demand sat the ledger. Meat and butter had been plentiful and cheap in the east in the two years before; the first year of the soldier-governor sat a harvest that did not sit at all. The board that the Seventeen would announce in July to fix prices of produce would have no opportunity of making trial of its ability on a 1785 crop. May sat that drought already, before the 28th of July paper, and before December named a third drostdy. The first chair sat an engineer. The barns sat empty. [3]
Last Memorial and the Seventeen’s Changes — 10 May and 28 July 1785
On the 10th of May 1785 the last memorial sent from the Cape was laid by the delegates of the burghers before the States General of the Netherlands. By that body it was referred for report to the chamber of Zeeland. An informal conference of the leading members of the legislature and of the directorate of the Company was held. The December 1784 papers — iniquitous and imperious government, maladministration of justice, scanty attention paid by the directors to the representations of the colonists — therefore sat a States General table in the same month Agulhas took the Brederode and the Castle lost its fiscal. Van Reenen, Artois, and Heyns still sat the lobby. The new deputation of March was still on the water. The Seventeen’s paper of the 3rd of December 1783 had not taken the question off the table. May put it past East-India House. [3] [9]
The result of that conference was that on the 28th of July the Assembly of Seventeen announced its resolution to make several changes in the system of government. The members of the council of policy were all to rank as senior merchants, and the secretary, who was not to have a voice in the proceedings, was to rank as a merchant. The high court of justice was to be presided over by the secunde, and was to consist besides of six servants of the Company and six burghers, all of whom were to rank as merchants. Its secretary was to rank as a junior merchant. Only members of the Dutch Reformed church could sit in either the council of policy or the high court of justice; but Lutherans could be appointed to any other offices. July therefore wrote six and six onto a paper, two years after the committee report of the 3rd of December 1783 had already approved reconstituting the high court on that footing, and it wrote the Reformed door still shut on the council and the high court, with Kolver’s nave free for every other chair. [3]
The Company would purchase and send to Europe all grain, wine, and other produce of the colony that could not be sold to foreigners, after the wants of the Cape and India had been supplied. The prices were to be fixed yearly by a board to be appointed by the council of policy from the members of the high court of justice, and to consist of three servants of the Company and three burghers. This board was also to propose to the council of policy the method and amount of taxation; it was to have the care of roads, bridges, and other colonial works; it was to let the public mills, to employ watchmen for the town, and to perform various municipal duties. The council was directed to report upon the likelihood of obtaining produce at various bays, pending the receipt of which report no decision would be arrived at concerning a coasting trade. The request of the frontier colonists to have a landdrost and a clergyman stationed among them was to be complied with, and a new district was to be created, with a board of heemraden similar to those of Stellenbosch and Swellendam. All the governing bodies in the Netherlands were agreed that the system thus introduced should have a fair trial, so no further redress was to be had from the States General. [3] [9]
The change in the high court, and the board that was to fix prices, would not sit until March of the next year. July 1785 wrote them onto a Seventeen’s paper. It did not write them onto a Cape bench. Free trade with Europe and India had not been granted. Appeals to the Fatherland had not been granted. Seven burgher seats in the council of policy had not been granted. The reorganisation might have anticipated some of the wishes expressed by the new deputation of Patriots, but it was altogether inadequate to satisfy the increasing demands for more freedom. In the soldier-governor’s eyes this whole reorganisation was an absurdity. He considered the colonists as soldiers who had to obey their commanding officer, and for the rest keep their mouths shut. July therefore put a paper on the table that named a third drostdy and a court of six and six, and it left the first chair a man who did not take that paper as a burgher victory. [3] [9]
Four bluebooks, containing in all 1,146 large quarto pages, were printed in Holland in 1785. They contained the principal documents concerning the complaints of the burghers, from the 1st of March 1779 to the 28th of July 1785, with the replies of the officers at the Cape. July therefore wrote the Cape quarrel into print in the Netherlands, on the same day the Seventeen announced the changes, and it wrote six years of memorials, replies, and committee paper onto 1,146 pages. The Company’s own books sat another figure. Its debt in 1785 was nearly seven million pounds sterling, and the states provincial of Holland and Zeeland were obliged to come to its rescue, or it would have sunk under the burden. These provinces became security for heavy loans, besides raising by a special tax a sum of about two and a half millions sterling, which money was lent upon low interest to the Company. The profits on the sale of goods out of the Company’s stores at the Cape were on an average about £6,200. There was a deficiency to be made good of nearly £92,000 a year. Public expenditure at the Cape now reached a sum of rather over £120,000 a year. July sat that insolvency in Amsterdam, and sat a reform paper on the Cape, in a year whose harvest had already failed. [3]
In the Netherlands the inhabitants were divided into two parties, one in favour of democratic government and alliance with France, the other in favour of the government of the stadtholder and alliance with England. The first of these was supreme in 1785, and in November of that year a treaty of close alliance with France was concluded. The soldier-governor who enjoyed the confidence of the stadtholder therefore sat a Cape chair in a year when the stadtholder’s party was not supreme at home, and when France — whose Pondicherry regiment had left the hospital wing in April 1784, and whose name still sat Little Paris — was written into a Dutch treaty. November did not take Van de Graaff off the first chair. The stadtholder’s power as governor-general of the East India Company would later sit greater than it had ever been. In 1785 it sat a France treaty, a seven-million debt, and a Seventeen’s paper that had named a third drostdy and had not named free trade. [3]
Graaff Reinet Named — 13 and 18 December 1785
The directors had consented to the formation of a new district. On the 13th of December of that year the formal sanction for the establishment of the new drostdy — which was to be on the same footing as those already existing — was issued. On the 18th of December 1785 the council of policy selected an old burgher resident in the village of Stellenbosch, named Maurits Herman Otto Woeke, who was believed to be a man of sound judgment. He was directed to make a tour along the border, to select a site for his court, and to report fully to the council. The district at the same time had the name Graaff Reinet given to it, in honour of the governor and his lady — Graaff for the soldier in the Castle, Reinet for Hester Cornelia Reynet. It was not until more than seven years after Plettenberg’s eastward tour of 1778 that the measure was carried into effect. The delay had arisen from the war with England, the suspension of communication, and the internal commotions brought about by the unpopularity and alleged misrule of Van Plettenberg. December 1785 therefore wrote the third drostdy onto the map, seven years after a governor had approved a seat of magistracy he was not empowered to establish without Holland, and it wrote the governor’s own names onto that map. [3] [4] [9]
It was decided that the new district should be bounded on the west by the Gamka river from its source to the Zwartberg, that range of mountains to the Gamtoos river, and thence the Gamtoos to the sea; on the east by the Great Fish river; and on the south by the ocean. On the north the boundary was undefined, the only fixed point being the beacon that had been placed by Governor Van Plettenberg on the bank of the Zeekoe river. The district was of immense extent. For all religious and civil purposes the drostdies of Stellenbosch and Swellendam had been too far distant. The families of the farmers were exposed to the utmost danger from San while the male inhabitants were drawn off periodically to attend the customary parades and business in the west. The distress of the outlying district was aggravated by the presence of a number of worthless Europeans of different nationalities whose wandering and lawless life was a constant menace to all peaceful pursuits. December wrote those bounds onto a council minute, with the Fish still the eastern river Van Jaarsveld had cleared in July 1781, and with Plettenberg’s Zeekoe beacon still the only northern nail. [3] [4]
Woeke was instructed to select a suitable site for his headquarters, and thus form the nucleus of a township. He had not yet opened a court. He had not yet named two farms near the source of the Sunday river. December put a landdrost on a district that did not yet sit a drostdy building, and put him on a tour. In the new district cattle breeding was almost the only pursuit of the Europeans. Until building sites were given out there was not a rood of ground held under any other tenure than that of yearly lease. Once in a twelvemonth each family who could do so sent a waggon laden with butter and soap to Cape Town to procure household requisites; but the people, without feeling it a hardship, managed to live with very few imported articles. From long warfare with San their habits of self-reliance were highly developed, and they were exceedingly averse to restraint. It was intended by the government that the district should be nearly self-supporting, that is, it was to cost the Company very little for defence or maintenance. Funds for local purposes were to be raised, as in Stellenbosch and Swellendam, by a yearly tax of one shilling and four pence for every hundred sheep and one penny for every head of horned cattle, besides special rates when necessary. [3] [4]
The struggle for existence carried on with the San in the new district was constant, and on neither side was any quarter shown or indeed possible. No European dared venture an hour’s ride from his homestead without arms in his hand. This was the normal condition of things throughout the country that December named Graaff Reinet, and along the northern border of the district of Stellenbosch. Woeke was instructed by the council to visit the principal Xhosa chiefs in the neighbourhood of the colony, to assure them of the friendship of the government, and to make them presents of brass wire, beads, and other articles of small value which they were known to prize highly. He was ordered to take great care that the Fish river was observed as the boundary, and that no Europeans crossed it or molested the Xhosa in any way. The bartering of cattle by the colonists was strictly forbidden. December therefore put a landdrost on a border that still sat Van Jaarsveld’s 1780–81 command, and put him under orders to keep the Fish as a line, with beads in one hand and a prohibition in the other. The court would not sit in 1785. The name sat. [3] [4]
First Year Closes: Bletterman, a Vacant Fiscal, and a District on Paper — 1785
In August 1785, upon the death of Mr Van Ryneveld, Hendrik Lodewyk Bletterman was appointed landdrost of Stellenbosch and Drakenstein. Van Ryneveld had sat that drostdy from February 1782, after De Wet went to the warehouses, and had sat Swellendam before that from May 1777. August took him off the second-oldest country chair. Bletterman sat it. Onkruydt still sat Swellendam. Faure still sat a secretaryship. Brand still sat the winter port. Van Gennep still sat the naval establishment. Hacker still sat the second chair in the Castle. The fiscal’s office still sat a vacancy from May, a council member acting provisionally. Gordon still sat the garrison as colonel. De Lille still sat next after him. Gilquin still sat the works. Meuron still sat the Swiss chairs. Some five hundred Dutch infantry still sat under Gordon. A few engineers still sat under Gilquin. The two thousand the directors had named as a standing garrison did not yet sit. [3]
Serrurier of Hanau and Fleck still sat the Reformed Cape, with Borcherds now third from May. Kolver still sat Melk’s nave. Stellenbosch sat Aling as consulent, Philip Kuys dead from February. Johannes Abraham Kuys still sat Waveren. Zwartland still sat a consulent, Goldbach dead from March 1783. Drakenstein still sat Aling from April 1784, now with Stellenbosch on his hands as well. The first year of the soldier-governor put a third clergyman on the Cape church, and put Stellenbosch back to a visiting pulpit. It did not put a clergyman on Graaff Reinet. Like Swellendam, the new district had as yet only a sick-comforter in prospect, and did not yet sit even that. December had named a landdrost. It had not named a consistory. [3]
Cape Town at this period was a very different place from what it had been in earlier times. With the arrival of the French troops in 1781 an expensive fashion of living had set in, 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. 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. Money seemed plentiful, and every one forgot that the apparent prosperity was based upon the insecure foundation of military expenditure. Pondicherry had embarked in April 1784. Meuron still sat. Little Paris still sat the Parade after the French infantry had gone. Cartoon money still sat the distant districts. 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. [3] [9]
In the long-settled parts of Stellenbosch and Drakenstein the people were living in comfort and ease. Many of the substantial dwelling houses erected before and during this period remained, as did also the oaks and other trees with which the homesteads were beautified. The rough labour of the farms was performed by African slaves under the direction of European overseers; the mechanical work, such as that of the carpenter, mason, and cooper, was chiefly executed by natives of the Indian islands, either free or slave. Along the northern border, warfare with San was constant, and the colonists there were in the same condition as those of the country now named Graaff Reinet. Van Jaarsveld still sat the eastern command, with the Fish still written as boundary and with the third drostdy named and not yet sitting a court. San still disturbed the northern farms. Percheron had purchased large quantities of provisions at high prices in the war years. Hendrik Justinus de Wet still sat the Danish agency. The first year of the soldier-governor sat prosperity in the shops and drought in the west, and it sat a frontier district on paper. [3]
Van Reenen, Artois, and Heyns still sat in Amsterdam, with Roos dead, with a last memorial laid before the States General on the 10th of May, with a Seventeen’s paper of the 28th of July that had granted six and six and a third drostdy and had not granted the trade, and with a new deputation that had left in March. The 1779 four had become three. The 1784 ten had signed at the Cape. The 1785 deputation had followed. All the governing bodies in the Netherlands were agreed that the system thus introduced should have a fair trial. No further redress sat a States General table. The high court of six and six did not yet sit. The price board did not yet sit. Woeke had not yet opened a court on the Sunday river. The first chair sat an engineer-colonel who had been instructed to calm the burghers and to arm the bay, and who took the burghers as soldiers who had to obey. [3] [9]
Notes, not specie, still met the Castle’s bills. The Company’s debt sat nearly seven million pounds. Holland and Zeeland had come to the rescue. A treaty of close alliance with France sat November. The Cape Flats plantation sat abandoned. The Amsterdam battery sat too far advanced to alter. Plettenberg sat Windesheim, off the quay from the 10th of April as admiral of the return fleet. The Brederode sat pieces on an Agulhas reef from the night of the 3rd and 4th of May, twelve men lost, no cargo saved. Serrurier sat a grave from May. Borcherds sat a third Cape pulpit from May. Philip Kuys sat a Stellenbosch grave from February. Van Ryneveld sat a Stellenbosch grave from August, Bletterman on that chair. The harvest sat entire failure. Graaff Reinet sat a name from December, with Woeke directed to tour, and with the Fish still the line. The first year of Cornelis Jacob van de Graaff ended on those facts, without a repaid November loan, without a weaver’s blanket on a slave’s back, without seven burgher seats in the council of policy, without a sitting third court, with a soldier in the first chair, with a Seventeen’s paper that had named changes and had not named free trade, and with two burgher deputations still in the Netherlands after a last memorial had already been laid. [3] [4] [7] [9]