Boer History1791 at the Cape of Good Hope: Van de Graaff Leaves, the 1791 Census, and Willem van Reenen North
Seventh Year of a Soldier-Governor: Inherited Chairs — 1791
Calendar 1791 opened with Cornelis Jacob van de Graaff still 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, now in a seventh year from the gardens of 1652. Johan Isaac Rhenius still sat the second chair from August 1786, after Pieter Hacker had retired at his own request. Jan Nicholas van Lynden still sat the fiscal’s office from February 1789, the vacancy that Jan Jacob Serrurier had left in May 1785. 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 two years 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 still sat Swellendam from the 21st of April 1789. 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 still 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. January therefore opened on three drostdies sitting, on a Java paper already written against Würtemburg, 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 sixth 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, on Venus Street still nailed above Serrurier’s Berg Street door, 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 not yet finished. 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 when January opened, with Gordon’s six hundred and four hundred engineers and artillerymen, and with a directors’ paper of the 10th of October 1790 already naming that regiment for Java and stopping all work upon fortifications. 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 whose October paper had already cut the horses, the posts, and the German two thousand. [3] [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. 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. 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]
Recall Arrives — 10 February 1791
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. The directors had been desirous of dismissing him, but the stadtholder, with whom he was a favourite, would not consent, and at that time the stadtholder’s power as governor-general was greater than it had ever been before, owing to the political revolution which had recently taken place in the Netherlands. 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. To this effect a despatch had been 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. The sixth year had sat that paper in Amsterdam. The seventh year sat it in the Castle. [3] [9]
That despatch arrived here on the 10th of February 1791. Three months from that paper would have sat a June sailing. The governor was instructed to leave for Europe within three months after its receipt. February therefore wrote a recall onto a Castle that still sat a soldier in the first chair, still sat Hester and the children in the houses, still sat horses in the Stalplein, and still sat Venus Street above a parsonage door. The paper named Rhenius to sit during an absence. It did not yet sit a ship in Table Bay. [3]
The three months expired, and the governor was still in Cape Town. The secunde and his party in the council protested against this disobedience of the orders of the directors and the detention of a first-class Indiaman in Table Bay during the winter season; but the governor took his own time. He delayed his departure for another few months on various pretences. Until the very last moment of his stay at the Cape he remained the Grand Seigneur to whom the average colonist was a mere servant and whose pretensions of being a free burgher were ludicrous. February’s paper therefore sat a three-month clock onto a soldier who would not sail by it, sat an Indiaman onto a winter roadstead, and sat a protest onto a council that had already sat a sword against the dispenser Le Sueur. [3] [9]
When this unpleasant missive from Amsterdam came under the eyes of the governor in 1791, the colony was boiling with discontent. Once more the chief cause of the complaints was the conduct of an impossible fiscal, and not so much the extravagance of an autocratic governor. Van Lynden had begun almost immediately after his arrival to misuse his high office to extort the colonists in the most blatant manner. The petition of the Court-Martial for the Civil Guards in 1790, calling him a pernicious and harmful subject, still sat against that chair. The governor’s son Sebastiaan was married to Van Lynden’s daughter, Cornelia Adriana Baroness d’Asprémont van Lynden, and this family connection had enabled the fiscal to act in such a manner as to draw down the intense hatred of the colonists. On one occasion Van Lynden had put a white man to torture, who, to be relieved of pain, confessed himself guilty of a crime of which he was afterwards proved to be innocent, but for which he suffered punishment. In October 1789 the directors 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. February’s recall therefore sat onto a Castle already sitting Venus Street, sat a baron’s daughter onto the stables’ master, and sat a five-percent paper the fiscal still kept. [3] [9]
Census, Opened Trade, and a Paarl Organ — 1791
In January 1791 an organ, built by Johannes Ludwig Hodderson of Cape Town and erected upon a gallery, was inaugurated in the Paarl Church. Helmoet Luttig, son of the sexton, was appointed organist with a salary of £20 per annum and a free house. The ornaments on the organ were executed by the sculptor Anreith, a native of Freiburg who had served the Company for some years as a modeller and on obtaining his discharge had started business on his own account, the same hand already associated with the carved pulpits in the Dutch Reformed church in town and in Melk’s Lutheran nave in Strand Street. January therefore wrote a gallery onto Aling’s Drakenstein church, wrote twenty pounds and a free house onto a sexton’s son, and wrote a Freiburg chisel onto a Paarl case. [8]
In February 1791 permission to send a cargo of wheat to Europe was accorded by the council to the burgher Tieleman Roos of Drakenstein. From the Cape, wine could already be exported by private individuals. February therefore wrote a wheat hull onto a Drakenstein name, and wrote it onto a roadstead whose last counted shipping window had already closed after 1789, when several of the journals and outgoing despatch books went missing from the archives. During the five years 1785–9 the average number of ships that put into Table Bay had been 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. The seventh year sat Roos’s wheat onto that closed window. [3]
Another great change was notified by the directors in March 1791. They had abandoned the exportation of all European wares on their own account, except to China and Japan, and had thrown that trade open to private individuals upon payment of customs duties. Foreigners, however, were not to be allowed to take part in it. March therefore wrote a private paper onto European wares that the Company’s own hulls would no longer carry except to China and Japan, wrote a customs line onto that paper, and wrote foreigners off it. Little Paris had sat Danish ships introducing all kinds of European wares at enormous profits. The seventh year sat that trade onto private Cape names, and sat the Company’s own account off it except the two eastern exceptions. [3]
The census returns of 1791 show the population of the colony as consisting of 3,618 European burghers, with 2,460 married women, and 6,955 children; 89 European men servants; 456 European men — exclusive of soldiers — in the Company’s service, with 291 married women, and 760 children; and 11,026 men slaves, 3,687 women slaves, and 2,683 slave children, belonging to the Company and to private individuals. The small number of slave children is chiefly due to emancipation. No mention is made of free blacks or of Khoikhoi in the returns. The seventh year therefore wrote thirteen thousand and thirty-three European names onto a roll that did not write a Khoikhoi name, and wrote seventeen thousand three hundred and ninety-six slave names onto the same paper, and wrote emancipation onto the smallness of the slave-child line. [3]
The revenue had gone on steadily increasing from £17,274 in 1781 to £28,912 in 1791, the increase being due chiefly to the larger sums paid for the right to sell wines and spirits and to a different manner of collecting the tithes of grain. In former years the farmers were required to make statements as to the quantity of grain gathered by them, and upon these statements the tithes were charged. Recently a system had been introduced of collecting actual tithes either in money or in kind upon all grain passing the barrier into town, and it was found to give a much larger revenue to government, although the whole quantity consumed in the country districts became exempt from taxation. The total revenue received from the 1st of July 1781 to the 1st of July 1791 was £221,075, or at the rate of £22,107 10s. yearly. It was made up of licenses to sell wines and spirits and the export duty on sales of wines and spirits to foreigners, farmed out; rent of £4 16s. each on ordinary cattle farms; a tax of 12s. on each legger of wine brought to town; transfer dues on sales of land, at ten per cent when the property had been held for less than three years, five per cent from three to ten years, and two and a half per cent when held over ten years, and also since July 1790 two and a half per cent on sales of improvements on leaseholds; stamps; tithes of grain; rent on cattle farms held in connection with freeholds under Van Imhoff’s tenure; freight and insurance from Mossel Bay; and rent of garden plots at 2s. a morgen. The seventh year therefore sat a larger wine-license line and a barrier tithe onto a chest that still sat a deficiency of nearly £92,000 a year against expenditure of rather over £120,000. [3]
Beverwyk Sails — 24 June 1791
When he was ready, on the 24th of June 1791, he issued instructions to Mr. Rhenius how to act during his absence, and embarked in the Beverwyk. He left an extensive memorandum with instructions for the secunde, but no pleasant memories. Colonel Van de Graaff returned to Holland, where he retained the title of governor of the Cape colony and received his salary as such. On his return to the fatherland he was received most kindly by the stadtholder. June therefore wrote a soldier off the first chair under a pretence of information, wrote Rhenius onto that chair as acting head, and wrote a title and a salary still onto a name that had already sailed. [3] [9]
The fiscal Van Lynden returned to Europe in the same ship with the governor, without leave from either the directors or the Cape council. On his arrival in the Netherlands he stated that he dared not remain in South Africa after Van de Graaff’s departure, as there would certainly be an insurrection, when his life — or his limbs at least — would be in danger. He went on board the Beverwyk during the night, leaving his family at the Cape, rushing out of his house and deserting his wife and job. So great was his fear of being lynched, or at least beaten up, by angry burghers. Upon Van Lynden’s flight, the council appointed Jacob Pieter de Nys to act as fiscal until the pleasure of the directors could be made known. June therefore wrote a night boarding onto a fiscal who had nailed Venus Street, wrote a family left on the beach, and wrote De Nys onto a chair the baron had emptied without leave. [3] [9]
The instructions concerning the breaking up of the military posts in the interior were carried out, and the stations were sold by public auction to the highest bidders. The horses and all the varied contents of the Company’s stables in Cape Town were disposed of in the same manner. The country seat at Newlands, which had been the favourite residence of Father Tulbagh and had been used by both the succeeding governors, was purchased by Hendrik Vos for £4,400. The country seat of Rustenburg, at Rondebosch, was retained. It had been occasionally used by the secunde in Tulbagh’s time, and constantly ever since; but two-thirds of the wine made from its vineyards had been claimed by the governors as a perquisite, the remaining third being left to the secunde. From its extensive gardens, cultivated by the Company’s slaves, both the governor and the secunde had drawn all the vegetables needed in their establishments, after which whatever was left was sent to the hospital. Saldanha Bay, Groenkloof, Klapmuts, Zonder End, and Buffeljagts River still sat those outposts when the October paper had named them for sale. June therefore wrote an auction onto the interior posts, wrote an auction onto the Stalplein horses Sebastiaan had mastered, and wrote Vos’s four thousand four hundred pounds onto Hester’s country seat. [3] [9]
When the work on the fortifications was stopped, the enlargements of the battery Chavonnes, designed by Governor Van de Graaff, were not quite completed. A battery which he had planned between the castle and the Devil’s Peak, and which had been named the Coehoorn, was only a little advanced beyond the foundations. The battery Gordon, built in 1781–2 at the upper end of the line of earthworks between Fort Knokke and the Devil’s Peak, was greatly out of repair. The remaining fortifications in Table Valley were in good order. The new hospital was not yet finished, though it had cost the Company nearly £52,000, exclusive of slave labour. The soldier who had mastered guns better than a price therefore left Chavonnes unfinished, left Coehoorn on its foundations, left Gordon out of repair, and left a hospital still rising on a November stone that had already cost fifty-two thousand. Let us not judge him too harshly, and acclaim at least the words he spoke when his troops were cut, his German allies sent packing and fortification works stopped. “This will cost you the Cape,” he said to the Seventeen. [3] [9]
It was only after the governor left the colony that the old name of Berg Street was restored. Acting-governor Rhenius obliged, and the brief and hectic career of Venus Street came to an end. A town plan of 1791 marked Ds. Serrurier’s street: “Venus straat nu Berg straat.” Mr. Serrurier had protested, but without avail, while the soldier still sat the first chair, and had not been favoured with a reply. June therefore wrote Rhenius onto Venus Street as well as onto the first chair, wrote Berg Street back onto a parsonage door, and wrote a 1791 plan onto a nail Van Lynden had driven in 1790. [3] [9]
Willem van Reenen North — 17 September 1791
For several years there had been an impression among certain burghers that gold was to be found in large quantities in the desert region north of the Orange river and bordering on the Atlantic. It was currently reported and believed that the English traveller Paterson had discovered rich ore there, though he had not made his discovery known. Sebastiaan Valentyn van Reenen, who had accompanied Lieutenant Paterson on one of his excursions, had really become possessed of a piece of ore or rock from which a chemist had extracted some grains of gold, though the place where the substance had been found was unknown. The seventh year therefore sat gold grains onto a chemist’s paper, sat a desert north of the Orange onto a rumour, and sat a Paterson name onto a secret the traveller had not published. [3]
Fired with the idea of making a discovery that would enrich himself and benefit his native country, Willem van Reenen of the farm Zeekoe Vlei, on the Elephant river, with the permission of the council fitted out an exploring expedition at his own expense, and on the 17th of September 1791 set out for the north. He had with him as companions Pieter Brand, Adrian Louw, Barend Freyn, and Frederik Wysman, besides several Bastaards and a large party of Khoikhoi. September therefore wrote a private column onto a council’s leave, wrote four burgher names onto Zeekoe Vlei’s paper, and wrote a northward track onto gold grains whose mountain was still unknown. [3]
On the 30th of October he crossed the Great river, and on the 18th of November rested at the furthest point reached by Captain Hop’s expedition in 1761. The country was parched by heat and drought, San and lions were very troublesome, and the oxen were beginning to die; but Van Reenen and his companions still pushed on. November therefore wrote Hop’s 1761 furthest onto a rest of 1791, wrote a parched desert onto a column that had already crossed the Orange, and wrote dying oxen onto a gold rumour that had not yet sat a mountain. The seventh year closed that column still north of Hop’s furthest, still pushing on, and still short of the hot spring and the copper that another calendar would name. [3]
Commission Named and Manger Engaged — August–December 1791
In consequence of the helplessness to which the East India Company was now reduced, the States General appointed a commission of four members to examine minutely into its affairs and to check further abuses. These gentlemen — the baron Van der Does, the lord of Marquette, Mr. P. H. van de Waal, and Mr. H. van Straalen — sent in preliminary reports in February and July 1791, one result of which was that a board with very great powers was constituted to examine into abuses in India and rectify them. The individuals selected to form this board were Sebastiaan Cornelis Nederburgh, chief advocate of the East India Company, Captain Simon Hendrik Frykenius of the national navy, Willem Arnold Alting, governor-general, and Hendrik van Stokkum, director-general of Netherlands India. The seventh year therefore wrote four names onto a States General paper in February and July, and wrote four more onto a board that would hold the Company’s own power. [3]
On the 19th of August 1791 a commission was issued by the stadtholder and the directors, empowering the members of this board, who could act separately anywhere but at Batavia, to investigate all matters connected with the Company’s affairs, to bring to light abuses and malpractices, to make necessary reforms, to dismiss corrupt officials of every grade and either send them to Holland or cause them to be tried by a court of justice, to fill all vacant offices with trustworthy men, and generally to do as they should judge best, for which purpose the same power was given to them as was held by those who signed the document. Only two members could visit the Cape, and to them special instructions were given by the stadtholder and the directors, acting with the concurrence of the commission appointed by the States General. Messrs. Nederburgh and Frykenius were directed on their arrival to see that the stoppage of public works resolved upon in the previous year was carried into effect. They were to establish the administration in the simplest and least expensive manner, and endeavour to increase the revenue. They could grant the colonists liberty to carry on a trade in slaves with Madagascar and the east coast of Africa, to establish whale fisheries, and to convey farm produce to any of the Dutch possessions in India and dispose of it there to the best account, provided that the vessels employed were owned in the colony or the Netherlands, were manned by crews consisting of at least half Cape colonists, and did not go beyond prescribed limits. They could allow private individuals to export wheat from Mossel Bay and timber from Plettenberg’s Bay. They were to impose import and export duties, and farm them out to the highest bidder. They were to investigate the causes of the continued dissatisfaction of the colonists, to rectify abuses, to settle complaints, and to take with them to Batavia a full statement of such matters as they could not summarily dispose of. August therefore wrote the Company’s own power onto two names that had not yet sat a Cape chair, and wrote a cheaper Castle onto a paper still sitting in Europe. [3]
Graaff Reinet, like Swellendam, had as yet only a sick-comforter, who was also schoolmaster. In September 1791 the directors engaged the Rev. Jan Hendrik Manger to minister to the people of Graaff Reinet. There was at this time a strong desire expressed by the leading colonists for better means of educating their children. More than half a century earlier there had been a high school in Cape Town; but it had not been sufficiently supported, and had therefore been discontinued. All who could afford it employed private tutors, but in the country districts the men who were engaged as teachers were usually unfit for their calling, through want of education and character. In and near the town a better class of persons could be obtained, and a few of the wealthiest colonists sent their sons to Europe to complete their studies. In 1791 a movement was commenced for the establishment of a good school at each church and seat of magistracy in the country, and of a high school in Cape Town, in which the Latin and French languages should be taught. A committee was appointed. September therefore wrote a clergyman’s name onto a third drostdy that still sat only a sick-comforter, and wrote a Latin-and-French paper onto a town whose high school had already failed once. [3]
Since the return to Europe of George Schmit, the Moravian Society had frequently requested the Assembly of Seventeen to permit missionaries to be sent to the Khoikhoi, but hitherto without success. At this time the required leave was granted. In a despatch, dated the 22nd of December 1791, the directors informed the Cape government that they had given the United Brethren permission to send two or three missionaries to South Africa and to administer the sacraments to any converts they might make, the only restriction being that they were not to occupy ground where Christian churches were already established. The government was instructed to give them such assistance as they might need. December therefore wrote a Moravian leave onto a paper that George Schmit’s years had not obtained, wrote two or three names not yet onto a Cape beach, and wrote a restriction onto ground that already sat a nave. [3]
Seventh Year Closes: Rhenius Acts, a Census, and a Column North — 1791
In the Castle the seventh year closed on a soldier no longer in the first chair. Johan Isaac Rhenius now sat that chair from the 24th of June, with an extensive memorandum how to act during an absence, and with Van de Graaff’s title and salary still sitting in Holland. De Nys now sat the fiscal’s office from that same June, Van Lynden already off in the Beverwyk without leave, a family left at the Cape, a five-percent paper no longer in that baron’s pocket as a perquisite the Castle could collect. 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 sat additions not quite completed. Coehoorn sat foundations. Gordon’s battery sat out of repair. The new hospital still sat unfinished at nearly £52,000 exclusive of slave labour. Würtemburg’s two thousand sat a Java paper of the 10th of October 1790, 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. [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. De Lille still sat next after him. Gilquin still sat the works, with all fortification work now stopped. Meding still sat a timber magazine at Plettenberg’s Bay. Stockenstrom still sat a clerk’s desk in Cape Town. Newlands now sat Hendrik Vos’s four thousand four hundred pounds. Rustenburg still sat the secunde, with two-thirds of its wine formerly a governor’s perquisite. The interior posts sat sold. [3]
Serrurier of Hanau and Fleck still sat the Reformed Cape, with Van Lier still third, and with Berg Street restored onto Serrurier’s door. Kolver still sat Melk’s nave. Stellenbosch still sat Borcherds. Drakenstein still sat Aling, with Hodderson’s organ and Luttig’s twenty pounds now on a Paarl gallery, and with Anreith’s ornaments on that case. 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, though Manger’s name already sat a directors’ engagement of September. A school movement already sat a committee for Latin and French in town and a good school at each church and magistracy. [3] [8] [9]
On the 10th of February the 14 October 1790 recall had reached the Castle: leave within three months and hand the administration to Rhenius. Three months had passed; the governor had still been in town; the secunde’s party had protested the detention of a first-class Indiaman in a winter bay. In January Hodderson’s organ had been inaugurated in the Paarl Church. In February the council had let Tieleman Roos of Drakenstein send a wheat cargo to Europe. In March the directors had abandoned exporting European wares on their own account except to China and Japan, and had opened that trade to private persons on customs — foreigners excluded. The census had counted 3,618 burghers, 2,460 married women, 6,955 children; 89 European men servants; 456 Company men exclusive of soldiers with 291 wives and 760 children; and 11,026 men slaves, 3,687 women, 2,683 children. Revenue had sat £28,912 against 1781’s £17,274. On the 24th of June the governor had issued instructions to Rhenius and embarked in the Beverwyk; Van Lynden had fled in the same ship by night; De Nys had been named acting fiscal; Newlands had been sold to Hendrik Vos for £4,400; the interior posts and the Stalplein horses had gone to auction; Venus Street had been written back to Berg Street. On the 17th of September Willem van Reenen had left Zeekoe Vlei for the north; on the 30th of October he had crossed the Great river; on the 18th of November he had rested at Hop’s furthest of 1761. On the 19th of August the stadtholder and the directors had issued a commission naming Nederburgh and Frykenius among a board with the Company’s own power. In September the directors had engaged Manger for Graaff Reinet. On the 22nd of December they had given the United Brethren leave to send two or three missionaries. The seventh year of Cornelis Jacob van de Graaff ended on those facts: on Rhenius sitting the first chair from June, on a census that had not written a Khoikhoi name, on a private column still north of Hop’s furthest, and on a cheaper paper already written in Europe onto two names that had not yet sat a Cape chair. [3] [4] [8] [9]