Boer History1786 at the Cape of Good Hope: High Court Enlarged, Graaff Reinet’s Court, Famine Imports, and Wrecks
Second Year of a Soldier-Governor: Inherited Chairs — 1786
Calendar 1786 opened with Cornelis Jacob van de Graaff already in the first chair, a lieutenant-colonel whose first article had been to restore the burghers to calmness and whose second had been to arm the bay. Pieter Hacker still sat the second chair. The fiscal’s office still sat a vacancy from May 1785, a council member acting provisionally after Jan Jacob Serrurier had gone to a grave, 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. A last memorial had been laid before the States General on the 10th of May 1785. The Assembly of Seventeen had announced changes on the 28th of July 1785. A new deputation had left in March 1785. January therefore opened on a soldier already in the Castle, on a Seventeen’s paper that had named six and six and a third drostdy and had not yet sat either, and on two burgher deputations still in the Netherlands after a last memorial had already been laid. [3] [7] [9]
In the country the inherited chairs still sat when January opened. Hendrik Lodewyk Bletterman still sat Stellenbosch and Drakenstein from August 1785. Constantyn van Nuld Onkruydt still sat Swellendam. Maurits Herman Otto Woeke still sat a landdrost’s name on a district that did not yet sit a court. Abraham Faure still sat a secretaryship. 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. Adriaan van Jaarsveld still sat Bruintjes Hoogte with military authority over the whole of the border farmers. The third drostdy still did not sit a court. [3]
The pulpits of the opening year sat the names the first year had closed on, with one country church still empty and Stellenbosch still on a visiting chair. The Rev. Johannes Petrus Serrurier of Hanau and the Rev. Christiaan Fleck still sat the Cape church, with the Rev. Meent Borcherds still third from May 1785. Stellenbosch still sat the Rev. Robert Nicholas Aling as consulent, the Rev. Philip Kuys already dead from February 1785. Drakenstein still sat Aling from April 1784. 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. Graaff Reinet, like Swellendam, had as yet only a sick-comforter in prospect, and did not yet sit even that. January therefore opened on three Reformed pulpits in the town, on a vacant Zwartland, on Stellenbosch still borrowed from Drakenstein, and on a named third drostdy without a consistory. [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. 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. The harvest of 1785 had entirely failed, owing to protracted drought. The Cape Flats plantation sat abandoned. The Amsterdam battery sat too far advanced for the new first chair to alter the design, though he considered it faulty. The Company’s debt sat nearly seven million pounds sterling, and Holland and Zeeland had come to the rescue. A treaty of close alliance with France sat from November 1785. The first chair still sat an official residence in the castle, a house in the gardens, a country seat at Newlands, carriages and horses, the produce of Visser’s Hok, and table allowances, with salary and perquisites of about £3,650 plus a special £1,500 a year. January therefore opened on a Castle waiting to put a Seventeen’s paper into chairs, on a frontier district named and not yet sitting, on a western harvest already failed, and on a soldier who took the burghers as soldiers who had to obey. [3] [7] [9]
High Court and Price Board — March 1786
The Seventeen’s paper of the 28th of July 1785 had named the chairs that March was to sit. 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. 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 appointed by the council of policy from the members of the high court of justice, three servants of the Company and three burghers. That board was also to propose 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 which no decision would be arrived at concerning a coasting trade. The request of the frontier colonists for a landdrost and a clergyman had already been written onto a named district in December. 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 of justice was made in March 1786. One of the three councillors under the old system retired at that time, and out of eight names presented by the court, the council selected Christiaan George Maasdorp, Gerrit Hendrik Meyer, Jan Coenraad Gie, and Hendrik Justinus de Wet to make the number of burghers up to six. March therefore wrote six burgher seats onto a court that had sat three councillors under the old system, and it wrote those four names onto the six. The secunde still sat the presidency of that court. Hacker still sat that presidency in March. The Reformed test still sat on both the council of policy and the high court. Kolver’s nave still sat without a Lutheran chair in either. [3]
The board that was to fix prices and perform so many other duties was established at the same time. It consisted of six members of the high court of justice, three of whom — Gerrit Hendrik Kruywagen, Salomon van Echten, and Jan Marthinus Horak — were servants of the Company; the other three — Jan Smuts, Andries van Sittert, and Maasdorp — being burghers. This board was a failure from the very first. The officials and burghers could not work amicably together, and everything proposed by one party was objected to by the other. As for fixing prices of produce, it had no opportunity of making trial of its ability. The harvest of 1785 had entirely failed. When in 1786 the ship Negotie arrived from Amsterdam to take in a cargo of wheat and wine, there was not a muid of grain to be had, and the government was obliged to send her to Batavia in ballast. The directors were thus disappointed, and the plan was never again brought forward. [3] [9]
In the first chair the reorganisation sat as an absurdity. The soldier-governor considered the colonists as soldiers who had to obey their commanding officer, and for the rest keep their mouths shut. He did nothing to help a board that could not price a harvest that was not there. 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 also saw to a more intensive drilling of the troops, and practised his artillery in firing with red-hot cannon balls. Horses sat his hobby: some sources put one hundred and thirty in the government stables at Stalplein, others three hundred. His son Sebastiaan loved them even more, and put the fastest of them to a light two-wheeled fly, rushing past burghers who chatted in the shade of the oaks on Gentleman’s Walk. March therefore sat six and six on a high court, sat three and three on a board that could not sit together, and sat a first chair who mastered guns and horses better than a price. [3] [7] [9]
The burghers’ second group of delegates — Hillegard Mulder and Marthinus Adriaan Bergh among them — started to quarrel among themselves. They did not even refrain from bringing their controversy into the open by writing in the Dutch press. The first chair wrote of Bergh as a tireless troublemaker whose character had caused him to live in the fire like a salamander. Worse for the burghers’ representatives, their principals in Cape Town stopped the transfer of funds. The States General could now afford to give them the cold shoulder. The reorganisation programme might have anticipated some of the wishes expressed by the new deputation, but it was altogether inadequate to satisfy the increasing demands for more freedom voiced by the leading settlers. March therefore sat a Seventeen’s paper into Cape chairs, and it sat that paper onto a deputation already at odds with itself, already unpaid, and already cold-shouldered in the Netherlands. [3] [9]
Flour and Rice against Famine — 1786
There being a large profit to be made on wheat, the Company endeavoured to procure as much of that article as possible for the European market. In 1786 it was necessary to import large quantities of flour from Europe and rice from Java to ward off actual famine. The long drought that had sat 1783, 1784, and 1785 in the west still sat the magazines empty when the year opened. The harvest of 1785 had entirely failed. A price board sat without a price to fix. A ship sat without a cargo to take. January through the sowing months therefore opened on a colony that had to buy bread from Europe and rice from Java, or go hungry. [3]
When the Negotie arrived from Amsterdam to take in a cargo of wheat and wine, there was not a muid of grain to be had. The government was obliged to send her to Batavia in ballast. The directors were thus disappointed. The board that was to fix prices had no opportunity of making trial of its ability. The plan of a mixed board pricing colonial produce for a Company purchase to Europe sat, after that ballast, as a paper that would not be brought forward again. Famine imports and an empty hold therefore wrote the Seventeen’s commercial clause off the year’s practice, even as six burghers sat a high court that the same paper had named. [3] [9]
In that year the long drought broke up. Rain sat the west again after three failed seasons. The magazines still needed flour and rice to ward off actual famine, because a drought does not fill a bin in the month it breaks. The year therefore sat both facts at once: a broken drought, and a famine import. Cattle-breeding on the frontier still sat almost the only pursuit. Once in a twelvemonth each family who could do so still sent a waggon laden with butter and soap to Cape Town. The long-settled parts of Stellenbosch and Drakenstein still sat substantial houses and oaks, with African slaves under European overseers for rough labour and natives of the Indian islands, free or slave, for carpenter, mason, and cooper. The shops of Little Paris still sat Danish wares at enormous profits. The bins of the west sat empty until the new rain could be reaped. [3]
The Company’s books still sat a deficiency. Profits on the sale of goods out of the Company’s stores were on an average about £6,200. There was thus a deficiency to be made good of nearly £92,000 a year, and the Company was at this time almost hopelessly insolvent. Its debt in 1785 had been nearly seven million pounds sterling. The states provincial of Holland and Zeeland had become security for heavy loans, besides raising by a special tax a sum of about two and a half millions sterling, lent upon low interest so that the Company might have a chance of recovering itself. Its condition was commonly attributed to losses during the war with England, but there were men in the Netherlands as well as in the Indies who knew that the corruption of its own officers had quite as much to do with its decline. The first chair lived in great style and pomp. Subordinates still carried on the old system of extortion. A large garrison of foreign mercenary troops — mostly German and Swiss adventurers — was still kept up at Cape Town. Calendar 1786 therefore sat famine imports against an insolvent chest, and sat a soldier-governor’s table against a board that could not price a muid. [3] [7]
Four Wrecks — May to October 1786
On the 3rd of May 1786 the wreck of a small French schooner, with a cargo of wine from Bordeaux, was found on the coast a little to the eastward of Cape Hangklip. Two dead bodies were found close by, but no further particulars could be ascertained. The year therefore wrote an unnamed French hull and two unnamed dead onto a Hangklip beach, with Bordeaux wine in the hold and no living voice to say how the schooner had come there. May opened on that wreck, and on a high court already sitting six and six, and on a price board already failed. [3]
In the evening of the 11th of May 1786 the Dutch national frigate Holland, one of a fleet of ships of war bound to Java, when entering False Bay struck on a reef and became a total wreck. Eight lives were lost. The war with England had closed. A treaty of close alliance with France sat from November 1785. A Dutch national frigate bound to Java still had to enter False Bay, and still could strike a reef in the evening. Eight men sat that reef. The hull sat a total wreck. May therefore wrote a Company famine import and a national warship onto the same month, and wrote eight dead onto False Bay after writing two dead onto Hangklip eight days before. [3]
On the 19th of August 1786 the wreck of a French brig named the Rozette was found close to Cape Point, and it was ascertained that she was from Bordeaux bound to Mauritius. There was no living person on board. Some days later six seamen were found under suspicious circumstances at the Cape, and were arrested, when it was discovered that they had murdered the officers and other sailors of the Rozette, and had then run the vessel ashore. They were tried and executed for the crime. August therefore wrote a Bordeaux–Mauritius brig onto Cape Point without a living soul on her deck, and it wrote six men onto a Cape court and onto a gallows. The high court that March had enlarged to six and six sat that trial. The year that imported flour against famine sat a murder on a wine-and-sugar route past the Point. [3]
On the 7th of October 1786 the Company’s schooner Catwyk aan Rhyn was driven ashore in Simon’s Bay in a violent gale, and became a wreck, but no lives were lost. Brand still sat the winter port. The gale sat Simon’s Bay. The Company’s own schooner sat the beach. October therefore wrote a fourth wreck onto the year, after Hangklip, False Bay, and Cape Point, and it wrote that fourth wreck onto a Company hull in the bay the winter ships were meant to use. No lives sat that gale. The court of Graaff Reinet sat its first sitting in the same month. The year closed its wrecks on a schooner lost and a drostdy opened. [3]
Graaff Reinet Court Opens — July and October 1786
As the best site for the public offices, Woeke selected two farms near the source of the Sunday river, then in occupation of a burgher named Dirk Coetsee, who agreed to dispose of the buildings on them for about £530, and to accept land of equal extent elsewhere. This arrangement was ratified by the council. The site determined upon was a small plain of about two square miles, partly surrounded by a sharp curve of the Sunday’s River, a farm in Coetsee’s possession. Shut in on the east and west by precipitous hills or mountains of some 1,800 feet in height, it is open on the north and south to the Karoo regions beyond. At the date of Woeke’s selection the tract must have appeared as desolate and unfertile as the country which immediately surrounds it. The nucleus of a township sat those two farms. The name Graaff Reinet already sat the district from December 1785 — Graaff for the soldier in the Castle, Reinet for Hester Cornelia Reynet. The buildings now sat a price. [3] [4] [9]
On July 19th, 1786, the boundaries of the new district over which the jurisdiction was to take effect were defined. It was of immense extent. It was decided that it 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. In July 1786 a board of six heemraden was appointed, two of whom were thereafter to retire every year, and to be succeeded by others selected by the council of policy from a double nomination. The first members were Adriaan van Jaarsveld, David de Villiers, David Schalk van der Merwe, Andries Pieter Burger, Josua Joubert, and Jacobus Gustaf Triegard. Van Jaarsveld therefore sat both the eastern command from 1780 and a heemraad’s chair on the new board. July wrote six names onto a district that December had named, and it wrote those names onto bounds of immense extent — from the Gamka and the Zwartberg to the Fish, and from the ocean to an undefined north whose only nail was Plettenberg’s Zeekoe beacon — then sitting as one drostdy. [3] [4]
In October the landdrost opened his court for the first time. Graaff Reinet thus became established in 1786, and from that date the eastern country may be considered to have had its official existence. In the new district, cattle breeding was almost the only pursuit of the Europeans. Until building sites were given out in the village of Graaff Reinet, 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 savages, 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. October therefore sat a court on Coetsee’s plain, sat a tax on sheep and horned cattle, and sat a Company that meant the third drostdy to cost it little. [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. From four farms adjoining the drostdy the cattle were swept off within a few weeks after the arrival of the landdrost. The Khoikhoi suffered even more severely than the Europeans, whole clans being ruined, and numerous individuals being tortured to death by San. On the other hand, commandos of Europeans and Khoikhoi were almost constantly engaged hunting the marauders in the mountains, and shooting down all who would not surrender. The government provided ammunition, but nothing else. Captive women and children were distributed among the farmers in the vain hope of compelling them to live by industry, but they invariably made their escape after a short detention, and returned to their predatory habits. This was the normal condition of things throughout the district of Graaff Reinet and along the northern border of the district of Stellenbosch. Continual depredations by both San and Xhosa made it almost impossible to keep stock of any kind, and the too frequent calls upon time to go on commando to regain their own or their neighbours’ cattle were not conducive to the continuous industry which agriculture demands. October’s court therefore sat on a plain from which four neighbouring herds had already been swept, and it sat with powder from the Castle and with no other help. [3] [4]
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. The condition of the Xhosa tribe at this time was such that it was difficult to make any satisfactory arrangements. Since the first war, the chief Rarabe had been killed in an engagement with a Thembu army. His great son, Umlawu by name, had died before him, and had left a lad of tender years as heir to the dignity of principal ruler of all the clans west of the Kei. Upon Rarabe’s death, his councillors selected his son Ndlambe as regent during the minority of Ngqika. This was in accordance with custom; but the clans that had crossed the Kei before Rarabe maintained that with his death their vassalage had ceased, except to Gcaleka, the paramount head of the whole tribe. There was thus a great deal of jealousy and discontent among the chiefs. Woeke had a meeting with Ndlambe, who expressed himself desirous of living in peace and friendship with the white people, and presents were exchanged between them. The landdrost reported, however, that a rupture between the two races could easily take place. There were Xhosa in service with farmers all over the country, even to within two days’ journey of the village of Swellendam, and the colonists were unwilling to part with them. A single case of ill treatment might at any moment bring on hostilities. Not a few lawless individuals also were engaged in the forbidden cattle trade, and as they were not accustomed to restraint, mere placaats had no terrors for them. With fifty or sixty soldiers stationed in posts along the Fish river, it would be possible to maintain order; but without physical force to support the law, the irregularities complained of would continue. October’s court therefore sat beads in one hand and a prohibition in the other, sat Ndlambe’s friendship on a report, and sat a request for fifty or sixty soldiers that the Castle did not send. [3] [4]
Hacker Retires; Rhenius Secunde; Pulpits of April and September — 1786
In August 1786 Hacker retired at his own request, and was succeeded as secunde by Johan Isaac Rhenius, a member of an old South African family, but whose life had been passed chiefly in the Company’s service in India. Both Rhenius and the vacant fiscal’s acting chair sat quarrelsome by disposition. To the colonists the government appeared corrupt almost beyond power of expression, and the bickerings of the principal officers called forth contempt as well as hatred. The government of the colony had never before sunk so low in the estimation of those who came in contact with it. August therefore wrote Hacker off the second chair after nine years, wrote an India-service Rhenius onto it, and wrote a high court that the secunde was to preside over onto a new name. The fiscal still sat a vacancy from May 1785. The first chair still sat horses and batteries. The second chair now sat a man the colonists would learn as quarrelsome. [3]
In April 1786 the Rev. Petrus van der Spuy, junior, who had completed his studies in the Netherlands, returned to South Africa, and was appointed to the vacant church of Zwartland. Goldbach had been dead from March 1783. Zwartland had sat a consulent through 1783, 1784, and 1785. April therefore wrote a returned student onto that empty pulpit, three years after Goldbach’s grave, and it wrote a Van der Spuy name back onto a country church. The opening year’s vacant Zwartland sat a clergyman before the high court sat six and six. [3]
In September of that year the Rev. Helperus Ritzema van Lier arrived from Holland, when Borcherds, at his own request, was transferred to the vacant church of Stellenbosch, and Van Lier succeeded him as third minister of the Cape. Philip Kuys had been dead from February 1785. Aling had sat Stellenbosch as consulent from that grave. September therefore wrote Borcherds onto the second-oldest country pulpit at his own request, wrote Van Lier onto the Cape’s third chair, and wrote Aling back onto Drakenstein alone. Serrurier of Hanau and Fleck still sat the Cape with Van Lier now third. Kolver still sat Melk’s nave. Johannes Abraham Kuys still sat Waveren. Van der Spuy junior now sat Zwartland. Graaff Reinet, like Swellendam, still had as yet only a sick-comforter, who was also schoolmaster. The third drostdy’s court sat from October. Its consistory did not sit. [3]
A Swede named Andries Stockenstrom became a clerk in an office in Cape Town in 1786. He had entered the Company’s service, and the second year of the soldier-governor wrote that clerk onto a Castle desk. The roadstead still sat foreign flags after the war: Dutch, French, English, Danish, American, and others still put into Table Bay and Simon’s Bay. Brand still sat the winter port after the Catwyk aan Rhyn went ashore there on the 7th of October. Van Gennep still sat the naval establishment. Gordon still sat some five hundred Dutch infantry. Meuron still sat the Swiss chairs. Gilquin still sat the works. The two thousand the directors had named as a standing garrison did not yet sit. August wrote a new secunde. April and September wrote three pulpits. A Swedish clerk wrote a small name onto a Cape Town office. The year of famine imports and a third court also wrote those quieter chairs. [3]
Second Year Closes: a Court on the Sunday River, a Failed Board, and Four Wrecks — 1786
In the Castle the second year closed on a soldier still in the first chair, with Hester, Sebastiaan, Anna Geertruida, Agneta Clara, and Nicolaas still in the houses, and with horses still in the Stalplein stables. Rhenius now sat the second chair from August. The fiscal’s office still sat a vacancy from May 1785, a council member still acting provisionally. The high court now sat six Company servants and six burghers, with Maasdorp, Meyer, Gie, and De Wet written onto the burgher six from March, and with the secunde still named to preside. The price-and-works board sat a failure: Kruywagen, Van Echten, and Horak unable to work with Smuts, Van Sittert, and Maasdorp. The Negotie sat Batavia in ballast. Flour from Europe and rice from Java sat the magazines against famine. The long drought had broken up. A muid still had not sat that Amsterdam hold. [3] [9]
Bletterman still sat Stellenbosch. Onkruydt still sat Swellendam. Woeke now sat a court on the Sunday river from October, with six heemraden from July, with bounds defined on the 19th of July, with Coetsee’s buildings bought for about £530, and with Van Jaarsveld on that board as well as on the eastern command. San still disturbed the northern farms and the new district. Four herds next the drostdy had been swept off within weeks of the landdrost’s arrival. Ndlambe had sat a meeting and exchanged presents, and had sat a report that rupture could easily take place. Fifty or sixty soldiers on the Fish had been asked and had not sat. Brand still sat the winter port. Van Gennep still sat the naval establishment. 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. [3] [4]
Serrurier of Hanau and Fleck still sat the Reformed Cape, with Van Lier now third from September. Kolver still sat Melk’s nave. Stellenbosch now sat Borcherds from September, Philip Kuys dead from February 1785, Aling off that consulent’s extra chair. Drakenstein still sat Aling. Waveren still sat Johannes Abraham Kuys. Zwartland now sat Van der Spuy junior from April. Graaff Reinet still sat a sick-comforter in prospect, and still did not sit a clergyman. Stockenstrom sat a clerk’s desk in Cape Town from that year. The Lutheran test still barred Kolver’s communion from the council of policy and the high court, while Lutherans could be appointed to any other offices. [3]
Cape Town at this period was still 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 still striving to become possessed of a handsome house filled with costly furniture and a retinue of useless slaves. All kinds of European wares were still introduced in Danish ships, and were sold at enormous profits. 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. In the long-settled parts of Stellenbosch and Drakenstein the people were still living in comfort and ease. Along the northern border, warfare with San was still constant, and the colonists there were in the same condition as those of Graaff Reinet, whose court now sat. Hendrik Justinus de Wet still sat the Danish agency, and now sat a high-court burgher chair as well. [3] [9]
Van Reenen, Artois, and Heyns still sat in Amsterdam, with Roos dead, with a last memorial already laid on the 10th of May 1785, with a Seventeen’s paper of the 28th of July 1785 that March had sat into a high court and a failed board, and with a new deputation that had left in March 1785 now quarrelling, unpaid, and cold-shouldered. All the governing bodies in the Netherlands were still agreed that the system thus introduced should have a fair trial. No further redress sat a States General table. In the Netherlands the party in favour of democratic government and alliance with France, supreme in 1785, still sat that supremacy into 1786; a stadtholder’s removal from office sat that calendar in the Fatherland, while at the Cape the stadtholder’s favourite still sat the first chair. Notes, not specie, still met the Castle’s bills. The Company’s debt still sat near seven million. Four wrecks sat the coast: an unnamed French schooner east of Hangklip on the 3rd of May, the frigate Holland in False Bay on the 11th of May with eight dead, the Rozette at Cape Point on the 19th of August with six murderers later executed, and the Catwyk aan Rhyn in Simon’s Bay on the 7th of October with no lives lost. The second year of Cornelis Jacob van de Graaff ended on those facts, without a priced muid for Amsterdam, without a clergyman on the Sunday river, without a fiscal confirmed from the Netherlands, with six burghers on a high court, with a third court sitting at last, with a soldier still in the first chair, and with two burgher deputations still in the Netherlands after a last memorial had already been laid and a Seventeen’s paper had already been tried. [3] [4] [7] [9]