Boer History1794 at the Cape of Good Hope: Company Insolvency, Simon’s Town Forts, and Maynier Confirmed
Year Opens: A Passer-by in the First Chair — 1794
Calendar 1794 opened with Abraham Josias Sluysken sitting the Company’s own power from the 2nd of September 1793, with as much state as the cuts would allow, from the gardens of 1652, while Cornelis Jacob van de Graaff still sat a title and a salary in Holland, and Johan Isaac Rhenius still sat secunde under the passer-by. Willem Stephanus van Ryneveld now sat the fiscal’s office without the independent’s old privileges, De Nys having died in December, the last who held that office. Egbertus Bergh still sat the cashier’s desk with a voice and without a vote. George Frederik Goetz still sat the council’s secretary. Christoffel Brand still sat the winter port, with a council seat whenever he was at the castle. Jan Arnold Voltelen still sat the naval establishment without a seat. Lieutenant-colonel Carel Matthys Willem de Lille sat the national battalion. Colonel Robert Jacob Gordon still sat the garrison. Major Philip Herman Gilquin still sat the Table Valley works, with those works still stopped. January therefore opened on a little grey-haired gentleman with tired eyes in a parchment-like face, on a soldier’s title still paid out of sight of the bay, and on a paper already sitting where gold and silver had sat. [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. Honoratus Christiaan David Maynier still sat Graaff Reinet provisionally, a secretary the frontier already detested, with six heemraden, and with Adriaan van Jaarsveld still on that board as well as on the eastern command. Jan Frederik Meding still sat the timber magazine at Plettenberg’s Bay. Jan Pieter van der Walt still sat two Nieuwveld farms free of rent, with power to call a commando without a landdrost’s leave. San still disturbed the northern farms. Of 120 farms between the Kowie and the Zwartkops, 116 still sat waste. Ndlambe still sat some four hundred head against 65,827 claimed. Cungwa still sat the Bushman’s river. Coenraad du Buis still sat a summons he would not obey. [3] [4]
The pulpits of the opening year sat the names the war 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 vacant on a July pension. Stellenbosch still sat the Rev. Meent Borcherds. Drakenstein still sat the Rev. Robert Nicholas Aling alone. Waveren still sat the Rev. Johannes Abraham Kuys. Zwartland still sat Van der Spuy junior. Graaff Reinet still sat the Rev. Manger from October 1792. Kolver still sat Melk’s nave. Van Baak still sat Duminy’s Grave Street house as preceptor. Three United Brethren — Heinrich Marsveld, Daniel Schwinn, and Johan Christiaan Kuehnel — still sat Schmidt’s pear tree at Baviaans Kloof, with an aged Khoikhoi woman’s New Testament, with gardens given family by family, with a mill for grinding corn, with a small factory for making knives, and with a school already open. [3]
The Company’s gardens in Cape Town and the country seat of Rustenburg still sat leased by public tender. A wheat price of 11s. 4d. a muid still sat the magazines, minus the tithe. Table Bay, Mossel Bay, and Plettenberg’s Bay still sat open for the India produce trade, fenced by Dutch hulls and by return cargoes that could be bought only from the Company. Whale fishing still sat open under Netherlands hulls, with open boats restricted to Table and False bays. Foreign goods in foreign ships still sat forbidden, except provisions for money, though the ban had been suspended for three years and few foreigners now called. Cartoon paper sat £135,473 at five per cent. Chavonnes still sat unfinished. The new hospital still sat unfinished at nearly £52,000. A pennist corps still sat Willem Ferdinand van Reede van Oudtshoorn. A pandour company still sat uniform. Willem de Klerk, Frans Kruger, and Marthinus Prinsloo still sat a States-General oath and no Company oath. January therefore opened on a passer-by in the first power, on a provisional drostdy the frontier already detested, and on three Brethren under a pear tree planted from the gardens of 1652’s church. [3] [9]
Directors Lengthen Simon’s Bay — January 1794
In January 1794 the directors issued orders that their ships were thereafter to make use of Simon’s Bay from the 10th of April to the 1st of October, instead of from the 15th of May to the 15th of August as previously. The lengthening sat on a gale already four years old. On the 12th of April 1790 a fleet — mostly under foreign flags — had sat Table Bay in a storm from the north-north-west. A French ship had gone ashore near the mouth of Salt River, joined by the Genoese barque Maria; in the afternoon a French brigantine, an American barque, an English whaling ship, the Danish Company’s Erfprins van Augustenburgh, and the Cape packet Helena Louisa had gone ashore. No lives had been lost. The Helena Louisa had been got afloat again. From that wreck the Seventeen now stretched the winter season by nearly two months at each end, so that Company hulls would sit the winter port while the north-westers still sat Table Bay. [3]
Brand still sat that winter port from May 1774, with a council seat whenever he was at the castle. Voltelen still sat the naval establishment without a seat. The lengthened season meant more months of Company hulls under Brand’s charge, more months in which Table Bay would sit empty of the Company’s own ships, and more months in which Simon’s Town would need guns if a French flag came round the peninsula. Sluysken’s chief attention was already directed toward means of defence against the French. The January order from the Seventeen and the passer-by’s own fear of a French descent sat the same coast: False Bay as the winter roadstead, Simon’s Town as the place that must be held, and Table Bay as a summer anchorage the north-wester had already punished. [3]
The ocean commerce past the Cape had already diminished since the Convention in Paris had declared war on the 1st of February 1793. There are no shipping returns in the archives for the years between 1789 and 1796, except for calendar 1794, in which year the number of vessels that put into South African ports was fifty-seven under the Dutch flag, with English, American, Danish, Italian, and Portuguese hulls besides, fewer than a hundred in all. Constant complaints concerning the stagnation of trade, the absence of gold and silver money, and the want of merchandise showed how severely the colonists suffered. The January order therefore lengthened a winter season over a roadstead that fewer flags now entered, and over a winter port whose two small forts were not yet finished. [3]
Company Cannot Pay Interest — February 1794
Sluysken had taken over the government under circumstances of great difficulty. The credit of the East India Company was exhausted, and its debt was ten million pounds sterling. In February 1794 it was obliged to declare itself unable to meet the interest on its loans. To maintain a garrison capable of defending the country in case of attack was beyond its power. The declaration sat Amsterdam and the Castle at once: a Company that could not pay interest could not send regular troops, could not finish Chavonnes, could not finish the hospital, and could not put gold back where cartoon paper now sat. [3]
In the colony gold and silver coin had disappeared, and in its stead sat a quantity of cartoon money resting on no other security than the ability of the Company to redeem it at some future time. Under those circumstances internal trade, except by means of barter, had almost ceased. Debts could be paid in paper, for it was a legal tender, and therefore no one cared to give credit. The prohibition of trade with foreigners had created such distress that its enforcement had been suspended for three years; but now very few foreigners called. The little merchandise in the country was sold at such excessively dear rates that individuals of moderate means were obliged to dispense with many of the ordinary comforts of life. Fortunately the seasons from 1786 were good, and there was no scarcity of food in the country; but there was hardly any market for the surplus. Nothing worth speaking of could be exported to Europe, and the government had a difficulty in sending to India the wheat, wine, butter, and tallow that could be made use of there. The colonists had not yet been able to organise a foreign trade on their own account. [3]
The several measures adopted to increase the revenue and reduce the expenditure were productive of results shown by the Company’s books for the three years preceding the 31st of August 1794, the latest date to which the accounts were audited. The total expenditure at the Cape during those three years was £203,070, or on an average £67,690 a year. The total revenue was £91,752, or on an average £30,584 a year. The amount derived from selling and leasing property belonging to the Company, including profit on East Indian produce, was £30,796, or £10,265 a year. Thus the yearly outlay was reduced to within £27,000 of the income, instead of £92,000 as previously. The commissioners had claimed that the benefits they conferred upon the colonists greatly outweighed the burdens imposed by the increased taxation. February’s insolvency sat those books in a harder light: the cuts had narrowed the gap, and the Company still could not pay interest on ten million pounds. [3]
Along the whole northern border the struggle with the San was constant. On the eastern frontier war with the Xhosa was being carried on, with no other assistance from the government than a scanty supply of ammunition. The great majority of the people were incensed with the Company, and, without thoroughly comprehending the question, were freely discussing the rights of man, as proclaimed by the French revolutionists. When they were informed that Nederburgh and Frykenius had left South Africa without granting to the colonists any representative rights in the government, and that Sluysken had been placed with extraordinary powers at the head of affairs, several of them — among whom were Willem de Klerk, Frans Kruger, and Marthinus Prinsloo — had openly refused to take the oath of fidelity. They were prepared to swear allegiance to the States General of the Netherlands, they said, and to keep their oath; but the East India Company and its officials they would no longer obey. The government threatened them with punishment, but was unable to put its threats into execution. [3] [9]
In the circumstances it was perhaps an advantage that the new head did not take sides. He was always calm and composed, and on no occasion showed any particular emotion. What he actually was — a francophile Patriot or an anglophile Orangist — he never betrayed. On the other hand his strict impartiality also had its disadvantages, as it prevented him from guiding his people on a straight course. The keyword of his appeals, “Unity Makes Strength,” had been nowhere to be found when he was installed. February’s insolvency sat that calm in a poorer Castle: no country houses, carriages, or horses could be put at his disposal; his wife and children had been sent through to Holland; and the Company that paid him £240 a month, with further remuneration left to the directors, now declared it could not meet the interest on its loans. He left the eastern situation as it was, and concentrated on his main job: defence. [3] [9]
Boetselaar, Zoutman, and Hout Bay — March–May 1794
Sluysken caused two small forts to be built in Simon’s Town, chiefly by means of convict and slave labour. The cost was thus trifling, for it was estimated that a slave was maintained for £4 14s. 9d. a year. The forts were completed in March 1794, when cannon were mounted on them, and they received the names Boetselaar and Zoutman. In May a garrison of 130 men was stationed in Simon’s Town. The winter port that the directors had just lengthened to the 1st of October now sat two named works and a garrison, under Brand’s residency, against the French flag Sluysken feared. [3] [9]
Three forts were also built at Hout Bay, so that if necessary ships might be sent there for security. They were named Sluysken, Gordon, and Little Gibraltar. The two first-named had cannon mounted upon them, but as there was no more artillery to spare, Little Gibraltar was left to be armed with the guns of any ships that might take shelter in the bay. A good deal of dependence was placed upon red-hot shot, and appliances for heating cannon balls were attached to all the batteries. The shortage of those integral parts of coastal defence was so great that one of the new fortresses — impressively called Little Gibraltar — had to be equipped with cannon off ships which happened to anchor in the bay. [3] [9]
Gordon still sat the whole military force. The troops in the colony consisted of a regiment of infantry mustering twenty-five officers and five hundred and forty-six rank and file, a corps of artillery mustering twenty-seven officers and four hundred and three rank and file, fifty-seven men belonging to the depôts of the regiments Meuron and Würtemburg, and a corps of pandours two hundred and ten strong. The infantry regiment was termed the national battalion, though it was composed of soldiers from nearly every country in the north of Europe, and there was hardly a Netherlander in it. It was commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel De Lille. All its officers were staunch adherents of the Orange party, and the rank and file were adherents of the party or nation who paid best. The artillery was in every respect superior. The men were Netherlanders with a small mixture of French and Germans, and were attached to the mother country. If not the whole, at least a large majority of this corps favoured the republican cause in Europe, and would have preferred to fight with the French rather than the English as allies. [3]
With so many elements of weakness the colony sat open. When the war commenced, England and the government of the stadtholder were in alliance; but a large proportion of the Dutch people favoured the French, and all were doubtful whether they might not soon change sides. The English government was apprehensive of the Cape falling into the possession of the French, by which the sea route to India would be endangered; and as soon as hostilities with France were certain, had proposed to the stadtholder to strengthen it with British troops. Negotiations to this effect were carried on for some time, but at length fell through, as the stadtholder by consenting would have furnished the democratic party in the Netherlands with an opportunity to assail him. Sluysken’s forts therefore sat a French fear and an English offer that the Prince would not take, on a garrison whose infantry would follow whoever paid and whose artillery would rather have fought with France. [3] [9]
In Holland, Van de Graaff — still titled governor of the Cape, still drawing the salary — was promoted in 1794 to the rank of major-general and appointed director of fortifications from the Waal to the Zuiderzee, when he resigned his situation in the Company’s service. The soldier who had told the Seventeen that cutting the troops and stopping the works would cost them the Cape now sat Dutch rivers, not Table Bay. His Hout Bay namesake still sat a fort with cannon. Gilquin’s Table Valley works still sat stopped. Sluysken’s two Simon’s Town forts and three Hout Bay works were what a Company that could not pay interest could still raise from convict and slave labour at £4 14s. 9d. a year. [3] [9]
Maynier Confirmed; Vos at Waveren; Kuys to the Cape — March–May 1794
The conduct of Maynier during the transactions that had closed the second Xhosa war was so much in accordance with the views of the government that in March 1794 he was confirmed in the appointment of landdrost. An order had been issued by the landdrost, and confirmed by the government, that three or four families should always live close together for mutual protection. In point of fact such an order was superfluous, for there was no other way of existing in the greater part of the district of Graaff Reinet than by combining in lagers. Proclamations were renewed, forbidding Europeans under very severe penalties from crossing the Fish river or carrying on cattle barter or intercourse of any kind with the Xhosa. The landdrost was instructed to conciliate those in the Zuurveld with presents, and to induce them in a friendly manner to return to their own country. The burghers who were foremost in advocating a renewal of the war were threatened with dire punishment, and Coenraad du Buis was summoned to Cape Town to answer to the crimes laid to his charge. He declined to obey the order, and it was not possible to have him arrested. March therefore made a provisional secretary into a confirmed landdrost, on a peace the Castle liked and the frontier hated. [3]
A report concerning the cause of the outbreak was drawn up and presented to the government in 1794 by Maynier. In it every attempt was made to represent the Xhosa as a quiet and peaceably disposed people who had been driven to the violence they had committed by ill-usage on the part of the burghers. Every hostile act of the latter was given an undue prominence while the maraudings of the Xhosa were either ignored or excused. The losses of the inhabitants were stated to have been fully compensated by the late reprisals. Outrages perpetrated by farmers were brought to light, but nothing was said of offences against them. In addition to those already mentioned, the paper recorded an act of violence committed by Frederik Jordaan — one of those overtaken and murdered in the raid. He had knocked some teeth out of a Xhosa servant with a bullet mould. All this was what the government authorities of the west, who perhaps realised their weakness, were most willing to hear and believe. With all qualms of conscience quietened, they relieved themselves of any further responsibility, for a time at least, in these eastern troubles. [3] [4]
The farmers had disbanded from the commando almost in a state of rebellion and, finding as they conceived their interests neglected and their acts and conditions of life misrepresented, a state of violent fermentation against the government ensued. From this moment the authority of government began to decline in the eastern districts, the inhabitants conceiving that, as it had not the power to protect, it was unable to punish. Confirmation in March did not quiet that fermentation. It told the frontier that the secretary they already detested now sat the drostdy by the Castle’s own choice, on a report the west was willing to believe, and on a Zuurveld still occupied. [4] [9]
In March 1794 the Rev. Michiel Christian Vos, a colonist by birth, arrived from Holland, where he had completed his education, and was appointed to the church at Waveren. The situation of third clergyman of the Cape, vacant since Van Lier’s pension of July 1792, remained vacant until May 1794, when the Rev. Johannes Abraham Kuys was removed from Waveren to fill it. Serrurier of Hanau and Fleck therefore sat the Reformed Cape with Kuys as third from May. Waveren sat a colonist in Kuys’s place. Stellenbosch still sat Borcherds. Drakenstein still sat Aling. Zwartland still sat Van der Spuy junior. Graaff Reinet still sat Manger. Kolver still sat Melk’s nave. Van Baak still sat Duminy’s Grave Street house. Three United Brethren still sat Schmidt’s pear tree. The only other change in the staff of clergymen for several years sat those two moves: a Cape-born man to Waveren in March, and Kuys from Waveren to the vacant Cape pulpit in May. [3]
Graaff Reinet Complaints All Year — 1794
During 1794 the complaints of the burghers of Graaff Reinet were unceasing with regard to the paper money, the stagnation of trade, the heavy taxes, the conduct of the landdrost, their being left without assistance to defend themselves against Xhosa and San, the conditions of the arrangement with the Xhosa which the government termed peace, and a few other matters of less import, such as being obliged to pay a toll for a pontoon on the Breede river whether they used it or not, and the necessity of every one about to be married appearing before the matrimonial court in Cape Town. The landdrost took no notice of their complaints, and while the colonists were being plundered and harassed by the Xhosa in the Zuurveld, in his reports represented everything as in a peaceable and orderly condition. [3]
The burghers then sent a deputation to Cape Town, provided with an enormous mass of evidence to show the falsehood of Maynier’s representations, and to request that he be recalled and a more honest man appointed in his stead; but Commissioner Sluysken would not even investigate the matter. Amidst his defence operations a deputation of the frontier approached him. They brandished a paper in his face in which their numerous grievances were enumerated, and the immediate replacement of hated landdrost Maynier was demanded. Unwisely, the harassed Sluysken did not even look into their complaints. By this treatment the patience of the colonists was at length entirely exhausted. He had threatened the men who would not swear to the Company, and had lacked the means to punish them. He now would not hear a deputation against the landdrost he had just confirmed. [3] [9]
Far from being awed by the authority and force with which they had had to contend in the late war, and far from fearing further consequences, Xhosa parties committed fresh murders and robberies almost before the members of the commando had reached their homes. A burgher named Erasmus had been murdered near the Zwartkops River and all his cattle taken. Two others had been murdered and one badly wounded. With loss of the greater part of their live stock, with increased insecurity of tenure of life and property in consequence of the virtual admission of the Xhosa to the Zuurveld, the unfortunate white inhabitants wanted but little more to fill their cup. Maynier’s 1794 report, and Sluysken’s refusal to hear the deputation that answered it, sat that little more on the year. [3] [4]
In France the Jacobins, with Robespierre at their head, organised the Committee of Public Safety. This enforced the Law of the Suspected, whereby any one might be arrested on the slightest suspicion of want of sympathy with the revolutionary cause. The period known as the Reign of Terror reached its climax in the months of June and July of 1794. After that date reaction set in. Robespierre, losing his influence, fell into the hands of his enemies and was executed. All this was not without its effect upon other European countries. The revolutionary ideas of the French essayists found a fruitful soil in Holland, for which country the eighteenth century had been a period of slow but sure decadence. At the Cape those slogans already sat the men who would swear to the States General and not to the Company. June and July’s terror in Paris did not put gold back in Table Valley, did not put guns on Little Gibraltar, and did not make Sluysken hear Graaff Reinet; it did sit the language in which the frontier already named its refusal. [4] [9]
Faure still sat Swellendam, not detested as Maynier was, with no complaint concerning his administration of justice, though he was already spoken of as a zealous agent of the Company and as having permitted himself to be guided by Maynier in the Xhosa war of 1793. Bletterman still sat Stellenbosch. Van der Walt still sat two Nieuwveld farms free of rent. San still disturbed the northern farms. Kees still sat Cape Town as a political prisoner. Afrikaner still sat a new staff of office from the 7th of August 1793. Six hundred half-breed merino lambs still sat Groen Kloof; two hundred still sat the Hantam under Jan Gysbert van Reenen. Meding still sat a timber magazine at Plettenberg’s Bay. The eastern complaints of 1794 therefore sat a confirmed landdrost, a refused deputation, a report the west believed, a Zuurveld still occupied, and a Swellendam drostdy not yet in the same fire — still from the gardens of 1652. [3]
Year Closes: Paper, Forts, and a Peace the Frontier Hated — 1794
In the Castle the year closed on a passer-by in the first chair. Abraham Josias Sluysken still sat that power from the 2nd of September 1793, with the commissioners’ own authority, with as much state as the cuts would allow, with Rhenius still secunde under him, and with Van de Graaff’s title now sitting a major-general’s work from the Waal to the Zuiderzee after he had resigned the Company’s service. Van Ryneveld sat the fiscal’s office without the independent’s old privileges. Bergh still sat the cashier’s desk with a voice and without a vote. Goetz still sat the council’s secretary. Brand sat a council seat whenever he was at the castle, and sat Boetselaar and Zoutman under his winter port, with 130 men from May. Voltelen sat the naval establishment without a seat. De Lille sat the national battalion. Gordon still sat the garrison as colonel, and sat a Hout Bay fort with his name on it. Gilquin still sat the Table Valley works, with those works still stopped. The high court still sat six Company servants and six burghers. The committee of that court still sat municipal affairs, and still sat twenty-three town wardmasters and two garden wardmasters under it. The Company’s gardens and Rustenburg still sat leased by public tender. A wheat price of 11s. 4d. a muid still sat the magazines, minus the tithe. Cartoon money still sat £135,473 at five per cent. Chavonnes still sat unfinished. The new hospital still sat unfinished at nearly £52,000. [3] [9]
Bletterman still sat Stellenbosch. Faure still sat Swellendam from the 21st of April 1789. Maynier now sat Graaff Reinet confirmed from March, a landdrost the frontier detested, with six heemraden, and with Van Jaarsveld still on that board as well as on the eastern command. Of 120 farms between Kowie and Zwartkops, 116 still sat waste. Ndlambe still sat 400 head against 65,827 claimed. Cungwa still sat the Bushman’s river. Du Buis still sat a summons he would not obey. Kees still sat Cape Town as a political prisoner. Afrikaner still sat a new staff of office. Van der Walt still sat two Nieuwveld farms free of rent. San still disturbed the northern farms. Brand still sat the winter port, now from the 10th of April to the 1st of October by the directors’ January order. Meding still sat a timber magazine at Plettenberg’s Bay. Table Bay, Mossel Bay, and Plettenberg’s Bay still sat open for the India produce trade. Whale fishing still sat open under Netherlands hulls. Foreign goods in foreign ships still sat forbidden, though few foreigners now called. Fifty-seven Dutch flags, and a handful of others, had put into South African ports in the year — fewer than a hundred in all. [3] [4]
Serrurier of Hanau and Fleck still sat the Reformed Cape, now with Kuys as third from May. Kolver still sat Melk’s nave. Stellenbosch still sat Borcherds. Drakenstein still sat Aling. Waveren now sat Vos, a colonist by birth, from March. Zwartland still sat Van der Spuy junior. Graaff Reinet still sat Manger from October 1792. Van Baak still sat Duminy’s Grave Street house as preceptor. Three United Brethren still sat Schmidt’s pear tree at Baviaans Kloof, with an aged Khoikhoi woman’s New Testament, with gardens given family by family, with a mill, with a knife factory, and with a school. Six hundred half-breed merino lambs still sat Groen Kloof; two hundred still sat the Hantam. A pennist corps still sat Van Reede van Oudtshoorn. A pandour company still sat uniform, two hundred and ten strong. Willem de Klerk, Frans Kruger, and Marthinus Prinsloo still sat a States-General oath and no Company oath. [3]
On the 10th of October P. J. Guepin, chief advocate of the East India Company, wrote with the knowledge and approbation of the directors a letter dated that day, informally so that the stadtholder might know nothing about it. Guepin stated that matters were in a doubtful condition; the French armies were approaching, and had already occupied part of the country; it would therefore be necessary to keep careful watch, so as not to be surprised by any European enemy whatever. Except a rumour of the fall of Nijmegen on the 8th of November, brought by a Swedish ship, the Cape sat that year without further certain news of the course of events in the Netherlands. In Paris the Terror had already passed its June and July climax. In Holland the soldier who still held the Cape title sat the Waal and the Zuiderzee. In Table Valley a Company that had declared in February it could not pay interest sat cartoon paper, two small forts at Simon’s Town, three at Hout Bay, and a landdrost the frontier would not have. [3] [4]
In January the directors had lengthened Simon’s Bay from the 10th of April to the 1st of October. In February the Company had declared it could not meet the interest on ten million pounds. In March Boetselaar and Zoutman had sat cannon, Maynier had been confirmed, and Vos had taken Waveren. In May 130 men had sat Simon’s Town, and Kuys had sat the vacant Cape pulpit. All year Graaff Reinet had complained of paper, dead trade, taxes, the landdrost, no help against Xhosa and San, the so-called peace, the Breede pontoon toll, and the matrimonial court in Cape Town; a deputation had brandished that paper, and Sluysken had not looked. In June and July the Terror had sat Paris. In October Guepin had written that any European enemy whatever must be watched. In November a Swedish ship had brought Nijmegen’s fall. The books had been audited to the 31st of August. Van de Graaff had sat a major-general’s appointment and had resigned the Company. The year of insolvency and of two named forts ended on those facts: on a passer-by sitting the Company’s own power, on a paper bank sitting where coin had sat, on Little Gibraltar waiting for ships’ guns, and on a peace the government liked and the frontier hated — still from the gardens of 1652. [3] [4] [9]