Boer History1790 at the Cape of Good Hope: Table Bay Wrecks, Company Retrenchment, Venus Street, and the Guardian
Sixth Year of a Soldier-Governor: Inherited Chairs — 1790
Calendar 1790 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. Jan Nicholas van Lynden now sat the fiscal’s office from February 1789, the vacancy that Jan Jacob Serrurier had left in May 1785, with Willem Cornelis Boers already off that chair from April 1783. Both Rhenius and Van Lynden were quarrelsome by disposition. 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 already ten months in the chair, on six and six already sitting, and on a board that had never priced a muid. [3] [9]
In the country the inherited chairs still sat when January opened. Hendrik Lodewyk Bletterman still sat Stellenbosch and Drakenstein. Anthony Alexander Faure now sat Swellendam from the 21st of April 1789, Constantyn van Nuld Onkruydt already off to the Netherlands. 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, and with Honoratus Christiaan David Maynier now secretary from March 1789. 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 Würtemburg already named onto the bay, 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 fifth 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. Drakenstein still sat the Rev. Robert Nicholas Aling alone. Waveren still sat the Rev. Johannes Abraham Kuys. Zwartland still sat the Rev. Petrus van der Spuy, junior from April 1786. 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, and with Langa, Cungwa, and others still occupying from the Fish to the Kowie during the government’s pleasure after Wagener’s arrangement of the 3rd of August 1789. Notes, not specie, still met the Castle’s bills after the 30th of April 1782. Little Paris still sat the Parade and Dorpstraat. A surplus of grain still sat the magazines. The Amsterdam battery sat completed, guns mounted in February 1787. 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 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. [3] [4]
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. 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 regiment of Würtemburg — a body of mercenary troops two thousand strong — still sat the bay, with Gordon’s six hundred and four hundred engineers and artillerymen. Colonel von Hügel still sat a great friend of the first chair. A Swede named Andries Stockenstrom still sat a clerk’s desk in Cape Town from 1786. January therefore opened on a Castle that still sat a surplus and a heavier wall, on a frontier district sitting a bought occupation, and on a soldier who mastered guns and horses better than a price. [3] [4] [9]
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. 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, still sat when January opened. [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. 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. 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. January therefore opened on a bought occupation still sitting between Fish and Kowie, 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] [4]
Guardian Comes Back — January 1790
In November 1789 the British transport Guardian, under command of Lieutenant E. Riou, had put into Table Bay and taken 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. The fifth year had written that second Botany Bay paper onto the roadstead. It had not yet written her return. The sixth year opened on that return. [3]
On the 24th of December 1789, when about twelve hundred miles from the Cape of Good Hope, the Guardian struck upon an iceberg, and was so much injured that next day it was feared she would sink. Lieutenant Riou would not leave the ship himself, but he ordered the four boats to be got out, and with his approval as many of the crew as they could contain embarked in them and set sail for the African coast. The launch fell in with a French ship on the 4th of January 1790, and her crew of fifteen were taken on board and brought to the Cape. Those in the other boats must have perished. January therefore wrote fifteen living men onto a roadstead that had laden this hull in November, and wrote three boats lost onto the same paper. [3]
Contrary to expectation, the Guardian, though waterlogged, did not go down, and several days after the disaster a Dutch vessel homeward-bound from Batavia fell in with her. Assistance in men and materials was rendered, and she was brought back to Table Bay, the Dutch vessel keeping by her until she was safe in port. The sixth year therefore sat a waterlogged English transport in the summer roadstead, sat Cape grain and Cape stock still in her story, and sat a Dutch homeward hull as the ship that would not leave her until the bay had her. The London volume for 1790 would contain a narrative of that disaster. The Castle sat the launch’s fifteen first, and sat the hull herself when the Dutch ship had done her work. [3]
Venus Street and a Pernicious Fiscal — 1790
In a sermon upon Jezebel in the Groote Kerk in the year 1789, the Rev. Johannes Petrus Serrurier had given 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 had sat that glance. The sixth year sat the counter move. [3] [9]
It came when Fiscal van Lynden with two burgher councillors were instructed to name Cape Town’s streets. A committee of the high court of justice was appointed to name the new streets and squares of the town. Dominie Serrurier happened to live in a corner house in Berg Street which belonged to the Dutch Reformed Church. His wife and daughter too felt quite comfortable there. Then, on a memorable day in 1790, Fiscal van Lynden with his fellow-namegivers, followed by a slave carrying wooden name-plates, a pot of paint and a tool kit, walked into the street and came to stop in front of the Dominie’s house. Motioning at a spot below the stoep he ordered the slave to nail the new name to the wall. And so it was done. Berg Street, upon which the parsonage fronted, was changed to Venus Street, and the signboard was nailed above the clergyman’s door. [3] [9]
Only when the Dominie’s pretty daughters who were walking on the stoep found themselves the targets of suggestive winks and whistles of passing sailors, and the worthy minister rushed down to look at the new board, was it discovered that the old dignified Berg Street had been renamed Venus Street. In the Dutch language of those days the name of the goddess of love was generally used for defining prostitutes. Mr. Serrurier protested, but without avail, and addressed several petitions to the governor to have the street restored to its previous dignified status of Bergstraat, but was not favoured with a reply. The sixth year therefore wrote Venus onto a parsonage door, and wrote a fiscal’s nail onto a glance the Groote Kerk had already sat. [3] [9]
The petition submitted by the Court-Martial for the Civil Guards to the governor in 1790 told enough of the fiscal who had nailed that board. It contained an urgent request to dismiss the man as fiscal, calling him a pernicious and harmful subject. Van Lynden had begun almost immediately after his arrival to misuse his high office to extort the colonists in the most blatant manner. This document reached Van de Graaff not long after Van Lynden’s daughter, Cornelia Adriana Baroness d’Asprémont van Lynden, had become his son Sebastiaan’s wife. 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. On one occasion the governor in a passion drew his sword and would have wounded the dispenser Le Sueur, if the latter had not warded off the blow with his cane. The proceedings, as recorded, contain protests and counter protests in great profusion. Out of the council, these wretched disputes affected all classes of the community, and discord prevailed everywhere. The sixth year therefore sat a pernicious paper onto a Castle already sitting Venus Street, sat a baron’s daughter onto the stables’ master, and sat a sword onto a council that had never priced a muid. [3] [9]
Six Ashore — 12 April 1790
On the 12th of April 1790 a fleet of ships — mostly under foreign flags — was at anchor in Table Bay. The weather was stormy, with the wind from the north-north-west, accompanied by heavy showers of rain. In the morning a French ship parted her cables and went ashore near the mouth of Salt River, where she was joined shortly afterwards by the Genoese barque Maria. April therefore wrote two hulls onto the Salt River beach before noon, and wrote a north-north-west gale onto a roadstead that still sat French flags beside English, Danish, and American ones. [3]
In the afternoon a French brigantine, an American barque, an English whaling ship, the Danish Company’s fine ship Erfprins van Augustenburgh, and the Cape packet Helena Louisa went ashore. Towards evening the wind abated, or the number of wrecks would have increased, as other vessels had parted one of their cables. No lives were lost on this occasion. The Helena Louisa was got afloat again, and her damages were repaired. April therefore wrote six hulls onto the beach of one day, wrote no death-roll onto that gale, and wrote a Cape packet back onto the water after the wind had dropped. 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 had sat the Drietal Handelaars on False Bay stone. The sixth year sat six more on Table Bay sand, and sat one of them repaired. [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 sixth year therefore sat its April gale on a roadstead whose last counted window had already closed: a bay 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. April’s six hulls were mostly foreign, as that window had already said the flags would be. [3]
Transfer Duty on the Opstal — July 1790
Transfer dues on sales of land already sat at ten per cent on the purchase amount when the property had been held for less than three years, five per cent when it had been held from three to ten years, and two and a half per cent when it had been held over ten years. Since July 1790 two and a half per cent also sat on sales of improvements on leaseholds. In 1790 a transfer duty of two and a half per cent was put upon the sale of an opstal. Of the land tenures then enumerated, the loan place — owing to its inadequacy of payment, all places being rated at the same value, and to the indefinite boundaries and encroachments — was the most defective and unsatisfactory, yet five-sixths of all the holdings in the colony were of this kind. This loose system was most consonant with the inclinations and methods of the Boers, who were therefore loath to see it changed. July therefore wrote a two-and-a-half-percent paper onto the buildings a loan-place man could sell, and wrote it onto a tenure that still sat five-sixths of the farms. [3] [4]
The other heads of revenue still sat as they had sat through Van de Graaff’s years. Licenses to sell wines and spirits, sold yearly by public auction, and the export duty on sales of wines and spirits to foreigners, also farmed out, still led the list. Rent of £4 16s. each on ordinary cattle farms still sat the loan-place paper. A tax of 12s. on each legger of wine brought to town still sat the barrier. Stamps sat. Tithes of grain sat, now collected in money or in kind upon all grain passing the barrier into town, a system that gave a much larger revenue than the old statements of quantity gathered, though the whole quantity consumed in the country districts became exempt. Rent of cattle farms held in connection with freeholds under Van Imhoff’s tenure sat a smaller line. Freight and insurance from Mossel Bay sat after the first cargo of July 1788, and after 1789 the price at Mossel Bay had been reduced to 7s. 2¼d. a muid after the deduction of the tithe, the difference between that and the Cape price being set against the cost of sending vessels specially for it. [3]
In October 1789 the directors had given the colonists permission to export wine to Holland on their own account, provided it was sent in the Company’s vessels, and had 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 those 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. July’s opstal duty therefore sat onto a chest that still sat wine-licenses first, farm-rents second, and a five-percent paper the fiscal kept. [3]
East of the Fish, Gcaleka, a great son of Palo and founder of the Gcaleka, died and was buried about 1790, in the country beyond the Kei where he had settled some time before 1750. His right-hand brother Rarabe had already become a most powerful chief. West of the Fish the arrangement of 1789 still sat: Xhosa occupation of the land between the Fish and the Kowie during the pleasure of the government, without prejudice to the ownership of the Europeans, and with the captured cattle still in the invaders’ kraals. San still disturbed the northern farms and the new district. [3] [4]
In 1790 an expedition under the leadership of Jacob van Reenen proceeded from the colony toward the scene of the Grosvenor wreck in search of survivors. Lieutenant Riou’s name would later sit on a translation of that journal. July therefore wrote a duty onto the opstal, wrote a death onto the Gcaleka paramount about this year, and wrote a burgher column onto a wreck the relief of 1782 had not closed. [3] [4]
Directors Cut the Colony — 10 October 1790
From sheer inability to raise more money, in 1790 the Company was obliged to reduce its expenditure very greatly. On the 10th of October of that year the directors issued orders that the regiment of Würtemburg was to be sent to Java immediately, and that all work upon fortifications was to be stopped. They admitted that the remaining troops were insufficient for the defence of the Cape in the event of war, but they were helpless in the matter. October therefore wrote two thousand German mercenaries off a bay they had sat since the end of 1787, wrote Gilquin’s works to a halt, and wrote an admission onto a Castle that the remaining six hundred and the four hundred engineers and artillerymen could not hold the Cape if war came. The directors were desirous of dismissing the governor, but the stadtholder, with whom he was a favourite, would not consent, and at that time the stadtholder’s power as governor-general of the East India Company was greater than it had ever been before, owing to the political revolution which had recently taken place in the Netherlands. [3] [9]
A few days later they gave instructions that the military outposts in the country districts should be abandoned and the stations be sold, that the country seat used by the governor at Newlands should be sold, that their slaves should be reduced in number to four hundred and fifty, that all the mechanics and sailors who could be spared should be sent to Batavia, and that the horses and vehicles of all kinds in their stables should at once be disposed of and the proceeds be paid into the treasury. Saldanha Bay, Groenkloof, Klapmuts, Zonder End, and Buffeljagts River still sat those outposts when the paper was written. Newlands still sat Hester’s country seat. The Stalplein still sat one hundred and thirty horses, or three hundred, and a light two-wheeled fly. October therefore wrote a sale onto the interior posts, a sale onto Newlands, a cut onto the slave lodge, a draft onto spare mechanics and sailors toward Batavia, and a sale onto the stables Sebastiaan still mastered. [3] [9]
The governor had never given them satisfaction. They complained that he kept them in ignorance of everything that it was important they should know, while forwarding despatches covering hundreds of pages of foolscap and containing nothing that could not be told in a few sentences. They were also greatly displeased with his extravagance, and his arbitrary conduct in issuing orders and incurring expense without consulting the council was strongly disapproved of. His correspondence was so prolific that it kept many clerks busy — at the Castle as well as in East-India House — but seldom conveyed matters of importance, or clear answers to questions put. His conduct towards the settlers was arbitrary and completely unpredictable. His temper was so foul that on one occasion he drew his sword in the council room against a member who opposed him. Cape Town 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 had become 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. October’s cut therefore sat onto a Little Paris whose military chest could no longer raise the money. [3] [9]
The stadtholder, as governor-general of the East India Company, would only agree to the recall of Van de Graaff under pretence of his being required at home to give information upon the colony. To this effect a despatch was written by the directors on the 14th of October 1790, in which the governor was instructed to leave for Europe within three months after its receipt, and to transfer the administration during his absence to the secunde Rhenius. That it took a year of pondering and arguing before he was recalled was due to the refusal of the stadtholder to hurt his favourite’s feelings. At last a compromise was reached, whereby the prince, as governor-general of the Company, requested the governor of the Cape to come over to the Netherlands to report on the general conditions of the colony. October therefore wrote a recall onto foolscap under a pretence, wrote Rhenius onto a paper as acting head during an absence, and wrote it in Amsterdam. The sixth year sat that paper in the directors’ house. It did not yet sit it in the Castle. [3] [9]
Sixth Year Closes: Six Hulls, Venus Street, and a Cut — 1790
In the Castle the sixth 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 still sat the fiscal’s office from February 1789, a pernicious paper already written against him, a daughter already written onto Sebastiaan, and Venus Street already nailed above a parsonage door. 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 when the year closed, with Gordon’s six hundred and four hundred engineers and artillerymen, and with a directors’ paper of the 10th of October already naming them for Java. 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 1789 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 still sat Swellendam from the 21st of April 1789. 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 still secretary from March 1789, the pair still quarrelling, the district still very little removed from anarchy. 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 and with a Java paper already written against that regiment. De Lille still sat next after him. Gilquin still sat the works, with all fortification work now ordered stopped. Meding still sat a timber magazine at Plettenberg’s Bay. Stockenstrom still sat a clerk’s desk in Cape Town. [3]
Serrurier of Hanau and Fleck still sat the Reformed Cape, with Van Lier still third, and with Venus Street still on Serrurier’s door. 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. [3]
On the 4th of January a French ship had brought the Guardian’s launch of fifteen to the Cape. Several days after the iceberg a Dutch homeward ship had brought the waterlogged transport herself into Table Bay. On a memorable day Fiscal van Lynden had nailed Venus Street over Serrurier’s Berg Street door. The Court-Martial for the Civil Guards had asked that the fiscal be dismissed as a pernicious and harmful subject. On the 12th of April a north-north-west gale had driven six ships ashore in Table Bay; no lives lost; the Helena Louisa got afloat again. From July a transfer duty of two and a half per cent had sat on sales of an opstal. About this year Gcaleka had died and been buried beyond the Kei. Jacob van Reenen had proceeded from the colony toward the Grosvenor wreck. On the 10th of October the directors had ordered Würtemburg to Java, all fort work stopped; a few days later outposts and Newlands to be sold, slaves cut to four hundred and fifty, spare mechanics and sailors to Batavia, horses and vehicles sold into the treasury. On the 14th of October they had written a recall under pretence of information, naming Rhenius to sit during an absence. The sixth year of Cornelis Jacob van de Graaff ended on those facts: on Würtemburg still sitting the bay with a Java paper already written against it, on a fiscal still sitting from February with Venus Street on a parsonage door, on Faure still sitting Swellendam, on a bought occupation still sitting between Fish and Kowie during the government’s pleasure, and on a waterlogged English transport that a Dutch hull had not left until the bay had her. [3] [4] [9]