Boer History1789 at the Cape of Good Hope: Xhosa in the Zuurveld, Maynier, Faure at Swellendam, Wine Export, and a Bought Peace
Fifth Year of a Soldier-Governor: Inherited Chairs — 1789
Calendar 1789 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. Johan Isaac Rhenius still sat the second chair from August 1786, after Pieter Hacker had retired at his own request. 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. The high court of justice, remodelled in March 1786, still sat six servants of the Company and six burghers, with the secunde named to preside, and with Christiaan George Maasdorp, Gerrit Hendrik Meyer, Jan Coenraad Gie, and Hendrik Justinus de Wet still written onto the burgher six. The price-and-works board of three and three still sat a failure from the first: the officials and burghers could not work amicably together, and the harvest of 1785 had given it no price to fix. January therefore opened on a soldier already in the Castle, on an India-service secunde, on a fiscal still vacant, on six and six already sitting, and on a board that had never priced a muid. [3] [7] [9]
In the country the inherited chairs still sat when January opened. Hendrik Lodewyk Bletterman still sat Stellenbosch and Drakenstein. Constantyn van Nuld Onkruydt still sat Swellendam. Maurits Herman Otto Woeke still sat a court on the Sunday river from October 1786, with six heemraden from July, with bounds defined on the west by the Gamka to the Zwartberg, that range to the Gamtoos, and the Gamtoos to the sea, on the east by the Great Fish, and on the north only the beacon Van Plettenberg had placed on the Zeekoe, and with Adriaan van Jaarsveld on that board as well as on the eastern command. 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 the national battalion of about six hundred. 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. Jan Frederik Meding still sat the timber magazine opened at Plettenberg’s Bay in 1788. The outposts at Saldanha Bay, Groenkloof, Klapmuts, Zonder End, and Buffeljagts River were still maintained when the year opened. January therefore opened on three drostdies sitting, on a Swiss regiment already named for Colombo, and on a soldier who still took the burghers as soldiers who had to obey. [3] [9]
The pulpits of the opening year sat the names the fourth year had closed on. The Rev. Johannes Petrus Serrurier of Hanau and the Rev. Christiaan Fleck still sat the Cape church, with the Rev. Helperus Ritzema van Lier still third from September 1786. Stellenbosch still sat the Rev. Meent Borcherds from that same September, the Rev. Philip Kuys already dead from February 1785, the Rev. Robert Nicholas Aling still on Drakenstein alone. Waveren still sat the Rev. Johannes Abraham Kuys. Zwartland still sat the Rev. Petrus van der Spuy, junior from April 1786, 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, still had as yet only a sick-comforter, who was also schoolmaster, and did not yet sit a clergyman. January therefore opened on three Reformed pulpits in the town, on four country churches filled, 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. The harvest of 1785 had entirely failed; the long drought had broken up in 1786; flour from Europe and rice from Java had still been imported that year to ward off actual famine; and a surplus of grain now sat the magazines of the opening year, as it had sat them in 1787 and 1788. The Amsterdam battery sat completed, guns mounted in February 1787, and a burst trial on the 23rd of that month: two dead, five badly wounded, the governor slightly hurt. Rogge Bay sat a new battery. Chavonnes sat additions. The French lines of 1781 sat a strengthening. The Company’s debt sat nearly seven million pounds sterling. A treaty of close alliance with France sat from November 1785. In the Netherlands the stadtholder Prince William V, removed in 1786, had been restored in June 1787 by a Prussian army after the arrest of the princess of Orange at the Hague. In April 1788 a treaty of mutual defence had sat England and the States General onto one paper, and a triple alliance of Great Britain, Prussia, and the Netherlands had sat the same year. 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. Hester Cornelia Reynet, Sebastiaan, Anna Geertruida, Agneta Clara, and Nicolaas still sat the houses. Horses still sat the Stalplein stables — some sources put one hundred and thirty, others three hundred. January therefore opened on a Castle that had trialled a battery and still sat a surplus, on a frontier district sitting a court and not yet a consistory, and on a soldier who mastered guns and horses better than a price. [3] [7] [9]
Towards the end of 1787 the regiment of Würtemburg — a body of mercenary troops two thousand strong — had arrived at the Cape to relieve the Swiss regiment of Meuron, which was to proceed to Colombo. The garrison included also the national battalion under Colonel Gordon, about six hundred strong, and four hundred engineers and artillerymen. January therefore opened on two thousand German mercenaries already named onto a bay that had sat Meuron since February 1783, on Gordon’s six hundred beside them, and on four hundred engineers and artillerymen onto Gilquin’s works. Public expenditure, or the money paid out of the Company’s chest for all purposes at the Cape, still reached a sum of rather over £120,000 a year. Profits on the sale of goods out of the Company’s stores were still 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. The directors were desirous of dismissing the governor, but the stadtholder, with whom he was a favourite, would not consent. April 1788’s English treaty therefore still sat a thicker shield over the first chair. A Swede named Andries Stockenstrom still sat a clerk’s desk in Cape Town from 1786. The fifth year opened on that heavier wall, on that insolvency, and on a fiscal still vacant. [3] [7] [9]
Van Lynden and Faure — February and 21 April 1789
In February 1789 Jan Nicholas van Lynden arrived from the Netherlands and assumed the fiscal’s duty. The vacancy that had sat from May 1785, a council member acting provisionally after Serrurier’s grave, now sat a man from Holland. Both he and Rhenius were 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. During the debates in the council, violent scenes often took place. Out of the council, these wretched disputes affected all classes of the community, and discord prevailed everywhere. February therefore wrote a fiscal onto a Castle that had sat that chair empty for nearly four years, and wrote a quarrelsome pair onto the first two chairs beside a soldier already arbitrary, headstrong, and violent in temper. [3]
In the district of Swellendam matters were almost as bad as they would sit on the eastern border. Many of the farmers had fallen in arrear with their land rents, which, in fact, some of them took little trouble to pay, though the government was willing to receive cattle instead of money. The landdrost Onkruydt, after getting the district accounts into inextricable confusion and allowing the public buildings to fall into ruin, resigned and returned to the Netherlands, when the secretary of Stellenbosch and Drakenstein — Anthony Alexander Faure — was appointed to succeed him, on the 21st of April 1789. Faure did his utmost to restore order in his office, but was unable to do so. The people of this district were, however, comparatively free from robberies by San and Xhosa, and were therefore in more comfortable circumstances than their friends on the border. April therefore wrote a new landdrost onto Swellendam after Onkruydt had sat confusion and ruin, and wrote a secretary of Stellenbosch onto a drostdy that still sat arrears and buildings already down. [3]
The new district of Graaff Reinet could be but of little value to the Company; it was therefore to be maintained at as little cost as possible. With a view of making it self-supporting, a tax of 1s. 4d. on every hundred sheep and 1d. on every head of cattle was levied. The greatest expense anticipated and feared was that arising from the protection of the country against native inroads. To this end Woeke was instructed to use every means of avoiding conflict with the Xhosa, to endeavour to conciliate them and to maintain friendship by giving them presents. The strictest orders were issued forbidding the farmers to barter for cattle or have any other dealings with them. With the feeble organisation and no power at hand for enforcing the penalties, forbidden traffic continued, and many Xhosa were in the service of the farmers as herds. This latter proceeding was felt to be especially dangerous, for a rupture at any time between master and such a servant might lead to trouble with the clan to which the servant belonged. For a time a period of prosperity seemed to dawn. Comparative peace and quietness enabled the impoverished farmers to resume cattle breeding and the production of such commodities as butter and soap, which every now and then were transported to Cape Town, where they found a ready market. All this, however, was merely the calm which betokened an impending storm. [4]
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. Woeke had reported that a rupture between the two races could easily take place. The condition of suspense described by the landdrost lasted until March. January and February therefore still sat that suspense: a third drostdy sitting a court and a tax, a Swellendam sitting arrears, a fiscal newly arrived and already quarrelsome, and a Fish boundary still sitting on paper while Xhosa herds already sat European kraals west of it. [3] [4]
Xhosa Cross into the Zuurveld — March 1789
The condition of suspense lasted until March 1789, when a large body of Xhosa, headed by the chiefs Langa, Cungwa, and others of less note, suddenly crossed the Fish river and spread over the Zuurveld. The farmers fled before the invaders, but were unable to save the whole of their cattle. Farming operations were at an end. With terrible suddenness a number of chiefs, among whom were Langa and Cungwa the son of Tshaka, probably resenting the treatment they had received from Van Jaarsveld, crossed with hundreds of their adherents, and, scarcely before the farmers had time to escape with their families, were in complete possession of the Zuurveld. [3] [4]
The nation east of the Fish was then disturbed by a war of succession. On the death of the paramount chief, his son Ngqika not being of age, was not at once proclaimed chief. The head councillors appointed the boy’s uncle, Ndlambe, as regent during the minority. Some of the AmaXhosa, however, objected to the regent’s rule, and as their party was not strong enough to maintain their position, they crossed the Fish and began raiding the farms in that district. March therefore wrote two accounts onto one crossing: Langa, Cungwa, and Van Jaarsveld’s 1781 memory on one side, and a minority and a regent on the other. Both sat the same Zuurveld, and both sat farmers already off their places. [7]
The landdrost immediately instructed the burgher captain Daniel Willem Kuhne to take measures for the defence of the district, and despatched an express to Cape Town with a report that war was unavoidable and a request that the council would send a hundred soldiers to his assistance. Calling out the male inhabitants again on commando, he placed them under Kuhne’s leadership. Thirsting for revenge the farmers sought out and followed up the enemy, who, having possessed themselves of nearly all the cattle in the district, retreated to the Fish. The burghers were at once called together under arms, and a horse express went to Cape Town to ask for assistance. At Cape Town, however, the instructions from the authorities in Holland were to curtail expenses; and therefore it was decided that no second war could be allowed. [3] [4] [7]
Woeke’s letter reached Cape Town on the 20th of March. The council at once met, and came to a decision that war must be avoided at any price. The landdrost was censured for giving instructions to call out a commando for defence, as a collision might be the result. The secretary of the district — Jan Jacob Wagener by name — had tendered his resignation some time previously, and the council now appointed a clerk named Honoratus Christiaan Maynier to succeed him. Wagener was a professor of the belief that simplicity and innocence were virtues of savage life, and Maynier, who on all occasions studied his own pocket more than anything else, professed whatever principles his superiors for the time being held, so that he could be depended upon to carry out the views of the government. The council appointed these two men to form with the landdrost a commission to arrange matters with the Xhosa who had overrun the Zuurveld, and they were plainly instructed to buy the enemy off with goods supplied to them for the purpose. Instead of the desired assistance, the landdrost received a reprimand for having authorised the commando to go forth, and also the strictest orders to prevent any further hostile action. On the contrary, he was to endeavour to cajole and coax the clans to return to their own country by means of presents, and for that purpose goods and merchandise were sent to Graaff Reinet in charge of Maynier. [3] [4]
In the meantime Captain Kuhne had raised a commando, which was no sooner in the field than the invaders, without waiting to be attacked, fell back to the Fish river, which they found in flood, so that they were unable to cross. They were lying on the bank, and the burgher commando was approaching, when the instructions of the council were received by the landdrost. A fight was imminent, but before it could take place, instructions from Cape Town overtook the commando, forbidding any collision and ordering them to disband. Woeke put on record his opinion that a mistake fatal to the future tranquillity of the country was being made, and forwarded to the council a letter to that effect; but he carried out his orders with as much zeal as if they had been in accordance with his own views. The commando was at once discharged. Not a shot had been fired in retaliation for the losses sustained by the invasion, nor a single head of cattle recovered, so the burghers were indignant and almost mutinous when they were required to disband. After all the trouble and fatigue inseparable from such an expedition, they were not allowed to fire a single shot, but had to witness their cattle being driven off and themselves prevented from attempting to retake them. The burgher commando was on the point of attacking when the commissioners arrived from Cape Town and ordered the cessation of hostilities. [3] [4] [7]
Commission to the Kowie — June 1789
As soon as the new secretary Maynier arrived at Graaff Reinet with the goods provided by the government, the members of the commission made ready to visit the Zuurveld and seek an interview with the chiefs. On the 7th of June they left the village, accompanied by the heemraden Josua Joubert and Jacobus Gustaf Triegard, the militia captains Jan du Plessis and Andries Burger, the militia adjutant Barend Lindeque, and the burghers Pieter Lindeque and Roelof Kampher, all men well known for their friendly disposition towards the Xhosa in former years. Accompanied by a number of armed burghers they set out from Graaff Reinet for the Zuurveld, and thence endeavoured to get into communication with some of the belligerent chiefs. Upon arriving at the Kowie river, they found the stream swollen by heavy rains which had recently fallen, so they encamped on its bank, and sent some Khoikhoi to request the Gqunukhwebe chief Tshaka to pay them a visit. [3] [4]
On the 21st of June the Khoikhoi returned with several petty captains, who informed the landdrost that Tshaka and his son Cungwa were unable to travel, on account of sickness in their families; but they had been sent to hear what the white men had to say. With this characteristic address, they presented two oxen in the name of the chief Tshaka. The landdrost asked why they had invaded the colony. They replied that they did not regard their action as an invasion, because they considered the country between the Fish river and the Kowie belonged to them, they having purchased it some years before from a Khoikhoi named Ruiter. These chiefs excused themselves on the ground of ill-health, though some chiefs of minor importance ventured to come to hear the word of the white man. From these it appeared that they did not consider that their late inroad was an invasion into territory which was not their own, as the country was theirs in virtue of the purchase from Ruiter. [3] [4]
The landdrost asked them if they were not aware that after the war of 1781 the Amambala chief Langa, the Imidange chief Mahuta, the Amantinde chief Cika, and the Amagwali chief Koba — the same people who were now with the Gqunukhwebe clan in the colony — had consented to the Fish river being the boundary between the two races. They did not deny that it was so, but said they were willing to pay as much tribute to the government for the district between the Fish river and the Kowie as the farmers had paid rent. And in language that bore but one meaning they declined to give up possession of it. They refused to listen to any arguments based upon treaties, except in so far that they were willing to pay to government in cattle the same rent for the use of the country between the Fish and Kowie as the farmers were paying; beyond that they refused to enter into any negotiations whatever. The commission sent large presents of copper plates, brass wire, knives, and the like to the chiefs, but could not induce them to retire to their own country. The commissioners offered presents which were accepted, but this in no measure altered the situation, or induced the clans to retire. [3] [4]
Finding their efforts useless, Messrs. Woeke and Maynier with the burghers returned to Graaff Reinet, leaving Wagener to arrange matters as best he could. Just at this time a rumour reached the Xhosa that the farmers away towards Swellendam were going into lager, and remembering the prelude to Van Jaarsveld’s campaign of 1781, they were seized with a sudden panic. Not only did they retire in haste beyond the Fish river, but many of them fled far beyond it, and concealed themselves in the thickets of the Amatola mountains. Shortly afterwards they did retire, and with almost unseemly haste. A rumour was spread among them that Van Jaarsveld had been called upon to settle matters, and that he was organising a commando for that purpose. The recollection of the tobacco incident of 1781 and all that followed it being still fresh in their memories, they manifested a very sincere desire to leave the colony, and fled precipitately to the fastnesses of the distant Amatola. There they took refuge until it became evident that there was nothing worse to fear than conflict with the Cape Town government. June therefore closed on presents accepted and a boundary still refused, on a commission already split, and on a panic that emptied the Zuurveld without a shot. [3] [4]
Wagener’s Arrangement — 18 July and 3 August 1789
This was the condition of things when Wagener, attended by an escort of twelve armed men, on the 18th of July met the chief Cungwa and a party of Xhosa at a ford of the Fish river. Woeke and Maynier had previously returned to their duties at Graaff Reinet, and had left the ex-secretary to make what final settlement he could. Cungwa pressed his claim to the ground as far as the Kowie, basing his pretensions upon its purchase from the Khoikhoi captain Ruiter, who was little better than a freebooter, and whose only right to sell was derived from a brief occupation. Wagener declined to admit that Ruiter’s sale was binding upon the Europeans, but to remove the grievance, he offered to refund to the Xhosa as much as they had paid for the district. Cungwa would not agree to this proposal. [3] [4]
Wagener then consented to the return of the Xhosa and to their occupation of the land between the Fish river and the Kowie during the pleasure of the government, without prejudice to the ownership of the Europeans. Further futile attempts were made to induce the invaders to remain on the east of the Fish, and powerless to do anything else, Wagener made a virtue of necessity by giving them permission to occupy the desired country at the pleasure of government. And thus, having driven many of the inhabitants from their homes and seized the greater number of the cattle of the district, far from any punishment being inflicted, the marauders were permitted to keep the ill-gotten spoil and to retain possession of the Zuurveld. The Xhosa were allowed to retain all the cattle which they had captured, and were even permitted to establish themselves in the country between the Fish and the Kowie, on condition that they ceased raiding. Naturally, the farmers grumbled. [3] [4] [7]
With his report to this effect to the board of landdrost and heemraden of Graaff Reinet on the 3rd of August 1789, ends the official account of the second Xhosa invasion of the colony and of its disastrous consequences to the farmers. In documents issued by the government the arrangement made by Wagener was henceforth termed a restoration of peace and quietness; but the burghers of Graaff Reinet chose to call it by a very different name. This was regarded in official quarters as a satisfactory restoration of peace, but by the inhabitants it was felt that those who ought to have protected them had not only abandoned them to the mercy of the invaders, but had perpetrated the further cruelty of depriving them of the right to protect themselves. Almost any other people in the world would have abandoned a district in which they were exposed to such ruinous losses as those sustained by the hardy and persevering frontier colonists at this period. But they were determined to hold their own. In the neighbourhood of the Xhosa they guarded their herds with arms in their hands, while along the great mountain range they were continually struggling with the San. [3] [4]
The burghers were constantly complaining that they received from the Company nothing in return for the rents which they paid and the tithes of such produce as they sent to Cape Town. They had another grievance in the paper money. The butchers at the Cape were in the habit of sending out agents to purchase slaughter cattle, and these had always given in payment notes of hand of their employers. The farmers who now took these notes to Cape Town received only paper money, which was by law a legal tender. In the interior the paper was almost worthless, for, in addition to its not being redeemable at pleasure, so many forged notes were in existence that people were afraid of it. The wild, free, healthy life which they led had many charms for people of adventurous disposition, and several travellers contrasted it favourably with the dull routine of the farmers’ existence in European countries. Comfortable and well-furnished houses were not to be found on the frontier, for no one cared to build or to buy what might be destroyed the next day; but there was no lack of food or of other first necessaries of life. August therefore closed on a bought occupation, on paper notes that sat a legal tender in town and a fear in the interior, and on a frontier that still sat mud walls and a patrol. [3]
Drietal Handelaars, Wine Export, and a Five-Percent Duty — May–October 1789
On the 16th of May 1789 the Dutch ship Drietal Handelaars, homeward-bound from Ceylon under charter by the Company, was driven from her anchors off Zwartklip in False Bay, and went to pieces on the rocks. No lives were lost. May therefore wrote a wreck onto a year that had already written a crossing onto the Zuurveld, and wrote no death-roll onto that wreck. The fourth year’s three wrecks — the Avenhoorn in Table Bay, the Maria at Plettenberg’s Bay, and the Penelope on Muizenburg beach — still sat the coast’s memory. The fifth year sat one more Dutch hull on False Bay stone. [3]
During the five years 1785–9, the average number of ships that put into Table Bay was 189, and that put into Simon’s Bay 25. Of the whole number, 334 were Dutch, 212 French, 84 English, 70 Danish, 62 American, 29 Portuguese, 10 Austrian, 8 Spanish, 7 Swedish, 4 Prussian, and 1 was Italian. After 1789 it is impossible to give statistics of shipping, as several of the journals and outgoing despatch books are missing from the archives. The fifth year therefore closed the statistical window that Van de Graaff’s arrival had opened: a roadstead that had sat French, English, Danish, and American flags beside the Company’s own, and a winter port that had sat a quarter-hundred beside Table Bay’s hundred and eighty-nine. [3]
In its stead — the price board of 1786 having been a failure from the first, and the plan never again brought forward — in October 1789 the directors gave the colonists permission to export wine to Holland on their own account, provided it was sent in the Company’s vessels, and £1 13s. 4d. — shortly afterwards increased to £2 13s. 4d. — a legger freight paid upon it. There being a large profit to be made on wheat, the Company still endeavoured to procure as much of that article as possible for the European market. The first cargo shipped at Mossel Bay had sat July 1788, when the Company’s yacht Johanna Jacoba was laden with wheat for Batavia, purchased by the officer stationed there at 9s. 7½d. a muid clear to the producer, after the tithe was deducted, which was the price given at the Cape. But after 1789 the price at Mossel Bay was reduced to 7s. 2¼d. a muid, after the deduction of the tithe, the difference between that and the price given at the Cape being set against the cost of sending vessels specially for it. October therefore wrote a private wine privilege onto Company’s hulls, and wrote a cheaper Mossel Bay muid onto a magazine that had only the year before sat its first cargo at Cape price. [3]
In October 1789 the directors had also issued instructions that a duty of five per cent upon the value of all articles imported or exported, except by themselves, should be levied for the benefit of the Company; but these instructions were not carried out, because the fiscal had previously imposed the same charges for his own benefit, and continued to collect and keep the money, under the plea that it was a legitimate perquisite of his office. Van Lynden, four months in the chair, therefore sat a five-percent paper from Amsterdam as a paper he already collected for himself. October wrote a wine privilege onto the burghers and wrote a duty onto a fiscal who kept it. The Castle sat both papers. The chest sat neither as the directors had named them. [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 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. The governor lived in the most extravagant manner at the expense of the Company. The stables, which in Van Plettenberg’s time contained sixty-six horses, were now provided with double that number; and equipages, from a state coach and a travelling waggon to a light two-wheeled fly, were multiplied to an unreasonable number. The governor’s son, Captain Sebastiaan Willem van de Graaff, was appointed master of the stables, and was left to do almost as he pleased. Everything else was in the same style, reckless waste of the Company’s effects being entirely disregarded. Würtemburg still sat that Parade’s mercenary chairs, and the governor still opened his houses for German officers who drank better than Pondicherry had danced. Colonel von Hügel still sat a great friend of the first chair. [3] [9]
Fifth Year Closes: Guardian, Paper Notes, and a Bought Peace — 1789
In November 1789 the British transport Guardian, under command of Lieutenant E. Riou, put into Table Bay, and took on board large supplies of grain and live stock, intended for the use of the settlement at Botany Bay. Two years earlier, in November 1787, an English fleet conveying the first convicts, male and female, to Botany Bay to found the colony of New South Wales had put into Table Bay for supplies. November therefore wrote a second Botany Bay paper onto a roadstead that still sat French flags beside English ones, and wrote Cape grain and Cape stock onto a transport that would carry them toward that settlement. The fifth year sat that call. It did not yet sit her return. [3]
After 1789 there was very little respect paid to the government authorities in the district of Graaff Reinet. Woeke became addicted to drunkenness, and allowed a violent temper to become his master. On several occasions he poured torrents of abuse upon the heemraden and militia officers, which they were not slow to resent. He and the secretary Maynier were also continually quarrelling, and the latter, being a favourite with the government, did not scruple to irritate his superior officer. The condition of the district was thus very little removed from anarchy. Apart from the unhappy state of the district arising from the attitude of the clans, there was discord at the drostdy. The new secretary did not work in harmony with his superior. Each disliked the other and both were hated by those in whose interests they were appointed to act. Maynier was rising in favour and influence with the authorities at Cape Town, and was therefore at no pains to hide his feelings towards his superior, who was not so fortunate. The arrangement of 1789, whereby the Xhosa occupied the Zuurveld with nominal permission, but in reality because the government were powerless to prevent them from doing so, could not but lead to further trouble. [3] [4]
In a sermon upon Jezebel in the Groote Kerk in the year 1789, the Rev. Johannes Petrus Serrurier gave offence to the governor, who maintained that his lady was pointedly alluded to. During a sermon on the wicked Queen Jezebel of the Old Testament, Dominie Serrurier directed a rather meaningful and suggestive glance at the governor’s wife. At least to her husband Cornelis it looked like that, and he was convinced that the minister had wanted to identify his Hester with the infamous wife of King Ahab whose sins he had just enumerated. From that moment the Dominie was in the governor’s bad books, and the whole congregation who had witnessed this exciting pantomime waited in tense anticipation for His Honour’s counter move. The fifth year therefore sat a glance in the Groote Kerk onto a Castle already sitting bickerings, and sat Hester onto a pulpit’s Jezebel in the first chair’s hearing. [3] [9]
One of the chief springs of action which later led the burghers of Swellendam and Graaff Reinet to oppose their government with such confidence had its source outside the colony. For many years prior to 1789 there had been in France an increasing disposition on the part of the poorer classes to revolt. In May of that year representatives from all parts of France met the king and his court at Versailles. In July 1789 the first blood was shed, when the troops fired upon an unarmed crowd. The Cape still sat a French treaty of November 1785 on the books while it sat an English treaty of April 1788 over the first chair’s patron. French ships still put into Table Bay and Simon’s Bay. English ships still put in. The roadstead still sold to both. July’s news from France sat a continent already dividing, and sat it over a Castle whose soldier was the stadtholder’s favourite under the alliance that now pointed toward England. [3] [4]
In the Castle the fifth 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 still sat the second chair from August 1786. Van Lynden now sat the fiscal’s office from February. The high court still sat six Company servants and six burghers, with Maasdorp, Meyer, Gie, and De Wet still written onto the burgher six, and with the secunde still named to preside. The price-and-works board still sat a failure. A considerable surplus of grain still sat the western magazines. The Amsterdam battery still sat completed. Rogge Bay still sat a new battery. Chavonnes still sat additions. Würtemburg’s two thousand still sat the town, with Gordon’s six hundred and four hundred engineers and artillerymen. In April 1788 a treaty of mutual defence had sat England and the States General onto one paper, and a triple alliance of Great Britain, Prussia, and the Netherlands had sat the same year. In October the directors had sat a wine-export privilege onto Company’s hulls, and had sat a five-percent duty that the fiscal kept as a perquisite. [3] [9]
Bletterman still sat Stellenbosch. Faure now sat Swellendam from the 21st of April, Onkruydt already off to the Netherlands. Woeke still sat a court on the Sunday river, with six heemraden, and with Van Jaarsveld on that board as well as on the eastern command, and with Maynier now secretary from March. San still disturbed the northern farms and the new district. Brand still sat the winter port. Van Gennep still sat the naval establishment. Gordon still sat the garrison as colonel, now with Würtemburg beside him. De Lille still sat next after him. Gilquin still sat the works. Meding still sat a timber magazine at Plettenberg’s Bay. Serrurier of Hanau and Fleck still sat the Reformed Cape, with Van Lier still third. Kolver still sat Melk’s nave. Stellenbosch still sat Borcherds. Drakenstein still sat Aling. Waveren still sat Johannes Abraham Kuys. Zwartland still sat Van der Spuy junior. Graaff Reinet still sat a sick-comforter who was also schoolmaster, and still did not sit a clergyman. Stockenstrom still sat a clerk’s desk in Cape Town. [3]
In March Langa, Cungwa, and others had crossed the Fish and spread over the Zuurveld. On the 20th of March the council had resolved that war must be avoided at any price. Kuhne’s commando had taken the field and had been discharged without a shot. On the 7th of June the commission had left the village; on the 21st Tshaka’s captains had claimed the Fish-to-Kowie as bought from Ruiter. On the 18th of July Wagener had met Cungwa at a Fish ford. With his report of the 3rd of August the official account of the second Xhosa invasion had ended. Government called it peace; Graaff Reinet burghers used another name. On the 16th of May the Drietal Handelaars had gone to pieces off Zwartklip, no lives lost. In October wine might be exported on private account in Company’s vessels, and a five-percent duty sat a fiscal’s perquisite. In November the Guardian had taken grain and stock for Botany Bay. The fifth year of Cornelis Jacob van de Graaff ended on those facts: on Würtemburg still sitting the bay, on a fiscal sitting from February, on Faure sitting Swellendam, on a bought occupation between Fish and Kowie during the government’s pleasure, and on a transport that had taken Cape stores toward New South Wales. The sixth year would sit those magazines, that bought occupation, and that heavier garrison — and would sit them still under the same soldier. [3] [4] [7] [9]