Boer History1799 at the Cape of Good Hope: Van Jaarsveld Rescued, Vanderleur’s March, and the Frontier War
Arrest and Rescue — January 1799
Calendar 1799 opened from the gardens of 1652 with the colony already a British possession. Earl Macartney had sailed in the Stately in November 1798; Major-General Francis Dundas assumed as acting governor on the 21st. The high posts were English and salaried; the burgher senate sat; Stellenbosch was quiet under Van der Riet; Swellendam had Faure; Frans Reinhard Bresler held Graaff Reinet. The night of the 22nd of November 1798 a fire in the thatched dragoon stables had consumed coal sheds, timber yard, commissariat magazines and victuallers’ warehouses, and seventy-two dragoon horses; all naval and military stores in the colony except a small quantity at Simonstown were gone. Rumour magnified the disaster, and the frontier farmers believed the army almost powerless. From the gardens of 1652 the Castle still watched Table Bay, but the acting governor now faced an eastern district that had never fully taken the oath. [3] [4]
In January 1799 a Portuguese vessel, the Joaquim, put into Table Bay with 450 slaves, ostensibly bound for Rio de Janeiro. Mr. Hogan, with a Mr. Tennant, was permitted to purchase and land them on payment of the customary duty of two rixdollars each, and to sell at public auction. Dundas had renewed Macartney’s permission for Hogan to import four hundred from Mozambique after the west-coast experiment had yielded only forty; the Joaquim made that leave unnecessary. He then told the burgher senate that no more slaves would be landed until the intentions of the king’s ministers were known. The Castle of 1652 thus opened the year with an auction on the roadstead while the eastern glens were already moving. [4]
The arrest of the old commandant Adriaan van Jaarsveld on a charge of forgery was the immediate cause of the outbreak. He owed the orphan chamber £733, for which he had given a bond upon the premises on his farm Vrede. Interest had been paid only to the 31st of December 1791; when in March 1798 he was called upon to make good the whole debt, he produced a receipt to the 31st of December 1794. The high court summoned him for the 29th of November to answer to changing the figure 1 into 4; he did not obey, and the fiscal instructed Bresler to apprehend him and send him to Capetown. In the secluded glens of Bruintjes Hoogte, Boschberg and Camdeboo the fomenters of discontent had been at work since the “Oude Edleman” sailed; an insignificant incident in the village was about to open them. [3] [4] [7]
On the 17th of January 1799 Van Jaarsveld, ignorant of the warrant, visited the drostdy of Graaff Reinet. Bresler took him. The charge having been read, the old commandant said he was afraid this would cause a disturbance among the people. That night he was kept in a room of the drostdy under a sentry of four dragoons. Next morning two wagons left together: secretary Oertel on public business for Capetown, and the prisoner under a sergeant and two dragoons, who were to treat him with all the politeness compatible with the situation, but to shoot him should his fellow-burghers attempt a rescue. On the 19th Bresler heard that a rescue was likely and sent a corporal and four more; on the 21st those men came back with Oertel’s letter that there was no cause for fear. On the 20th, after divine service, Bresler had the church bells rung and explained the arrest to the assembled inhabitants. [3] [4]
That same 21st about forty men from Boschberg under Marthinus Prinsloo overtook the wagon and demanded the prisoner. Oertel and the three dragoons complied. Prinsloo, drawing nearer, told Van Jaarsveld he was wanted because there was something spreading in Swellendam known to only a few. The party marched back and encamped about a mile from the drostdy; farmers from the Zwartkops river and the border of the Zuurveld brought them up to about one hundred and fifty. Bresler sent the heemraden Hermanus Olivier and Andries Smit to ask why they stood in arms. Prinsloo and three others came to the drostdy: fear of being arrested as Van Jaarsveld had been was the cause; they would not believe the charge was defiance of the high court, but insisted that the real reason was the part he had acted in former years. The farmers of the Sneeuwberg and the north-western portion declared for the government. Leaving thirty men to blockade the drostdy, the rest dispersed; on the 28th of January most assembled again on Prinsloo’s farm. [3] [4] [7]
Vanderleur’s March — February–April 1799
There they were joined by Jan Botha and Coenraad du Buys, two men living with the Xhosa, believed to have great influence with the young chief Gaika. Du Buys had been outlawed for remaining east of the Fish in defiance of Macartney’s order. He was a man of great bodily vigour, not wanting in intellect, utterly devoid of morality as the Castle counted it; among his female companions was Gaika’s mother, and that connection was the chief source of his influence. Circulars calling the district to the drostdy on the 12th of February failed: Hendrik van Rensburg and Thomas Dreyer declared for the government. Field-cornets on the Gamtoos, Zwartkops and Bushman’s reported the “Voice of the People” to Bresler. A meeting at Prinsloo’s about three weeks before the arrest had talked of calling in the Xhosa and carrying Bresler and his family into Xhosa country on the 10th of February; the movement was postponed. [3] [4]
On the 17th of February about one hundred men — one return gives one hundred and four, headed by Buys and Van Jaarsveld — assembled at Barend Burger’s. The reverend Mr. Ballot was there and tried to send them home. They dispersed with the understanding that they should meet again at Koega and form a camp against a landing at Algoa Bay. On the 13th Bresler had word from Burger’s wife that twenty-five armed burghers from the Zwartkops had arrived; on the 14th three armed men were seen in the river bed near the drostdy. On the 20th the thirty who were blockading entered the village and threatened violence; Ballot persuaded them to retire. The dragoons — only eight, under Sergeant Maxwell Irwin — stood firm, hoisted the English flag, and drew up under it. The village was invaded but no shot was fired beyond a later feu de joie; Bresler was compelled to sign an insolent letter demanding that Buys’s outlawry be cancelled, that Van Jaarsveld be released, and that no presents go to the Xhosa except through “our fellow burgher Conraad du Buys.” He found means to send a true account via Swellendam. [3] [4]
Oertel reached Capetown on the 16th of February and reported the rescue. Next morning Brigadier-General Thomas Vandeleur left with a strong detachment of dragoons to march overland — some two hundred, partly dragoons, partly disciplined Khoikhoi. A messenger went ahead to landdrost Faure of Swellendam to organise food and forage, stop communication with Graaff Reinet, and send word to Bresler that help was coming. A proclamation of the 17th commanded every farmer on the route to remain at home; a sergeant and four dragoons were stationed in the Hex River pass. Two brigs, the Hope and the Star, were ordered to Algoa Bay with two companies of the 98th and the Hottentot corps. The Star arrived on the 2nd of March, the Hope on the 8th. [3] [4]
On the Star Major MacNab and Captain Campbell dropped anchors about one o’clock; men and baggage were piloted through the surf before evening. Twenty grenadiers found a camp about four and a half miles inland at Papenkuilsfontein, Thomas Ignatius Ferreira’s farm, with sheep and oxen. Hans Knoetz, scout for the Koega party, watched the landing. Major Abercrombie came in on the Hope on the 8th. On the 12th the infantry joined Vandeleur’s Hottentots and cavalry eighteen miles inland; on the 14th the march to Graaff Reinet began. Vandeleur found eastern Swellendam in sympathy with the insurgents — disaffection all along the coast east of the present village of George — and ordered every man to remain on his own farm under penalty of being treated as a traitor. He stationed dragoons on the eastern road. At a poort the column took more than an hour to pass; MacNab wrote that he had never seen ground more favourable for a stand. The stand was not made. Failure was put down to Jan Botha’s not arriving with help from Xhosa country. [3] [4]
Vandeleur reached the drostdy on the 20th of March — troops in the night of the 19th and the morning of the 20th. The same day fifty-three Sneeuwberg farmers joined the English forces. Graaff Reinet was a dozen or so small wattle-and-daub houses on a small plain almost surrounded by high mountains. About one hundred and thirty had assembled at Koega and did not stand. Tidings of the Hottentot regiment ran through the district. Khoikhoi in service rose, seized guns, ammunition and clothing, and joined the British — about a hundred of the young men enlisted, and five or six times that number of men, women and children threw themselves under the army’s protection. That discouraged Prinsloo’s camp. On the 24th of March Willem Prinsloo junior and Daniel Liebenberg brought a petition begging pardon. Vandeleur answered in writing that arms must be down before he would deal, and that those who chose could meet him on the 6th of April at Willem Prinsloo senior’s at Boschberg. [3] [4] [7]
Four days later Vandeleur set out for Boschberg with all the troops except thirty left as a garrison. Bresler went with him. Soldiers sent to Bruintjes Hoogte took Van Jaarsveld and his son Zacharias without a fight. On the 6th of April one hundred and thirteen under Prinsloo laid down arms. There was no promise of pardon in Vandeleur’s paper; they thought pardon implied, and remonstrated when placed under guard. After a short investigation he offered forgiveness to the ninety-three least guilty upon a fine or one or two horses. The remaining twenty went to Algoa Bay and on board the Rattlesnake, which had brought a detachment of the 81st; they arrived in Table Bay on the 12th of June and were placed in close confinement in the Castle. Within a few days twenty-two others came in and were pardoned. Twenty-seven did not appear. On the 22nd of April Vandeleur called them to Ferreira’s at the Zwartkops on the 3rd of May. Several came; the others fled. On the 24th of May he offered £200 for each of Coenraad du Buys, Jan Botha, Christoffel Botha, Frans Kruger, Jan Knoetsen, Coenraad Bezuidenhout and Jan Steenberg, dead or alive. All were then under Gaika, joined by nine English deserters; they tried for a distant tribe, were turned back by the Tembus, and remained for several years. No one earned the reward. Excepting a feu de joie, not a shot had been fired between burgher and soldier. [3] [4] [7]
Ndlambe, Cungwa, and the Coast — 1799
While the wagons were still on the road from Boschberg, the colony was invaded. In February 1799 Ndlambe got out of his nephew Gaika’s kraal, was joined by a great many people, and crossed the Fish into the Zuurveld. All clans there except Cungwa’s Gunukwebes allied with the refugee. A fresh quarrel had a name: Tutula, held the beauty of the country, whom Gaika had enticed. The coast tribes observed chastity within certain degrees of relationship; in this Gaika offended, and many thousands went over. Before the invasion a large portion of the Zuurveld was still occupied by Xhosa clans left there when open hostilities ceased in November 1793; some parts were inhabited by farmers, and the border north and west was in white possession. As Ndlambe advanced, all in or near the line of march took to flight, some losing all they had, others driving cattle and abandoning everything else. [3] [4]
Vandeleur had no intention of employing British soldiers against the Xhosa, and did not anticipate that they would open on him without provocation. After the farmers’ submission he collected the posts and marched toward Algoa Bay, meaning to return to Capetown. At the Sunday river the column was hit in a thicket by Cungwa’s people, who thought they were about to be driven over the Fish. A shower of assegais came from the trees; the Gunukwebes did not expose themselves or continue long. Twenty men of the 81st under Lieutenant Chumney had been sent to reconnoitre toward the coast. Vandeleur fell back to the Bushman’s river to pick them up. A temporary camp was hardly formed when Cungwa charged in masses with assegai shafts broken short as stabbing weapons. Musket and grape covered the ground with bodies until the Gunukwebes turned. Chumney’s party was surrounded; after a desperate defence all were killed except four who escaped in a wagon. [3] [4]
When the four reached the column, Vandeleur resumed his march, sent the larger portion of his force back to Capetown, and formed camp on Ferreira’s farm. In May he called out two large burgher commandos against the Xhosa: one from Swellendam under Tjaart van der Walt, the other from Graaff Reinet under Hendrik van Rensburg. While they were assembling, farmers appealed for help against their late Khoikhoi servants. Many were roaming; several hundreds were at the British camp. Vandeleur thought it prudent to take from those under his protection the guns they had carried off. Suspicion that he was about to betray them did the rest. Before the commandos arrived they fled, and formed three bands under Klaas Stuurman, Hans Trompetter and Boesak, and joined the Xhosa invaders. At the beginning of June the burghers mustered at the Bushman’s river, provisioned for two months. Vandeleur meant them to drive the Xhosa over the Fish and not follow; he submitted that line to Dundas. [3] [4]
The acting governor approved, but urged conciliatory means, ambassadors, presents and promises, to impress the great chief with confidence that the government wished peace. The great chief of the tribe was Kawuta; Dundas meant Gaika. The head of the invading horde was at feud with him, so the negotiations opened on those orders failed. The commandos, kept waiting, lost heart; the Xhosa came to believe the white men afraid to attack. They and the insurgent Khoikhoi then overran the whole frontier. On the 22nd of July a horde of combined Xhosa and Khoikhoi crossed the Gamtoos and ravaged the Longkloof for many miles. From several houses the owners had not time to escape: eleven white men and four white women were murdered. Twelve women and children were made prisoners, but in the night they were permitted to walk away, and they wandered nearly a fortnight before they were rescued. [3] [4] [7]
On the 29th of July Bresler reported that nearly the whole district of Graaff Reinet was in possession of the Khoikhoi and Xhosa. He feared an attack on the drostdy, then protected only by a company under Lieutenant Lynden. Burgher families were in lagers; every man who could be spared was in the field, but in little parties, each on its own account. On the left bank of the Sunday river a commando of considerable strength was defeated: five men killed, over a hundred horses — most of them saddled — driven off. At the close of July twenty-nine whites were dead; hardly a house stood east of the Gamtoos; nearly all the horses, horned cattle and sheep were in Xhosa and Khoikhoi hands. Great herds had been driven over the Fish; many of the farmers’ oxen and cows were in Gaika’s kraals. The clans, except Ndlambe’s immediate retainers, were willing to share the spoil with Gaika, and he sat as “the bush” — professing to sit still in order to protect the plunder. The farmers were not deceived; the government credited him with too much honesty to be capable of it. [3] [4]
Maynier’s Truce and Fort Frederick — October 1799
On the 7th of August Dundas set out for the frontier to take direction in person, leaving Brigadier-General Henry Fraser to act at Capetown. A large burgher commando was called in Stellenbosch and in Swellendam; fifty dragoons and companies of the 91st and 81st were ordered to the front. The troops had taken very little part; they were now to assist the burghers if peace could not be made. Dundas held that expulsion of the Xhosa who had invaded was justifiable defensive warfare, but that hostilities were to be deplored as increasing bitterness. The Khoikhoi insurgents were descendants of the original occupiers and deserved to be tenderly dealt with. To try an amicable settlement he took Honoratus Maynier, who had secured his confidence. Maynier asserted that his influence with Ndlambe and with the Khoikhoi of Graaff Reinet was so great that he could induce them to a reasonable peace. [3] [4]
On the 10th of August, before Dundas and Maynier reached Swellendam, a great horde appeared near Ferreira’s camp and got most of the slaughter and draught oxen belonging to the commissariat; they were followed up and the cattle recovered. Vandeleur, irritated, caused a Xhosa spy detected in camp the next day to be hanged “as an example to the savages.” In the beginning of September Dundas arrived on the frontier, and shortly afterwards Maynier began to treat. A considerable military force under Vandeleur, and three strong divisions of burghers from Stellenbosch, Swellendam and Graaff Reinet under commandants Strydom, Van der Walt, and Van Rensburg, were in the field. There was nothing left to plunder within reach. Under those circumstances it was easy to persuade the Khoikhoi and Xhosa captains to give their word that they would abstain from further hostilities and not trespass beyond the Zuurveld. They were promised they would not be molested there, and large presents were made. [3] [4]
To the condition of things thus created Maynier gave the name of peace, and the government gladly consented to the word. On the 16th of October it was announced that hostilities were at an end. The hearts of the farmers sank, but they were obliged to abide the decision; and thus was established a kind of truce, thereafter observed in an indifferent manner. The commandos were disbanded and the troops withdrawn. On a hill overlooking the landing-place at Algoa Bay a wooden blockhouse, prepared in Capetown and sent round by sea in August 1799, was put up, and a stone redoubt eighty feet square was built and named Fort Frederick. Three hundred and fifty soldiers under Major Lemoine stayed as a garrison; in the village of Graaff Reinet a few dragoons and a number — constantly varying — of men of the Hottentot regiment were left. The other troops returned to Capetown. From the gardens of 1652 the Company’s refreshment station had never kept a stone fort this far east; the blockhouse on the hill was the first British mark on Algoa Bay. [3] [4]
On the 29th of October Dundas appointed Maynier a judge in the high court of justice and bookkeeper of the loan bank, “as a reward for his very meritorious public services.” On the 25th of December he had the additional appointment of resident commissioner and superintendent of public affairs within the districts of Swellendam and Graaff Reinet, with power to issue such orders as might appear requisite for the good government of those districts and the proper administration of justice therein. The farmers had to live with a truce that left Ndlambe in the Zuurveld and Maynier over two drostdies. Calendar 1799 thus closed the eastern war not with a boundary restored, but with a wooden blockhouse, a stone square, and a name of peace. [3] [4]
Afrikaner and the London Mission — 1799
While the east was in this confusion, the northern border was disturbed by the Namaqua captain Afrikaner, the same man who had aided the colonists against the San along the Zak river in 1792. After visiting Capetown in 1793 he resumed hostilities against his former enemies and drifted into warfare with all neighbours who had property that could be plundered. The first white man murdered by his band was fieldcornet Pienaar, who had supplied him with ammunition during the San war. To his original clan he added vagabonds attracted by spoil. His stronghold was an island in the Orange; from it bands made sudden swoops as far as two hundred and fifty miles. Whoever resisted — white man, half-breed, Khoikhoi or slave — paid with his life. Cornelis Kok, sometimes on the southern bank, at other times on a Kamiesberg reserve secured when Adam Kok gathered them, held his own until the spring of 1798, then suffered heavy losses, and in December conferred at Stellenbosch without obtaining aid. [3]
In May 1799 the robbers were unusually successful in a large booty of cattle, but in doing so they murdered a farmer named Jacob Engelbrecht, a half-breed, a Khoikhoi and two slaves. In June Afrikaner sent Kobus Booy to Stellenbosch under pretence of asking pardon; it was afterwards strongly suspected that the messenger’s real object was ammunition. Dundas refused to pardon the captain, and instructed the landdrost to call out a commando and set a price upon his head. This was done, without result: the retreat could not be reached. After that date Afrikaner’s depredations were chiefly confined to clans beyond the colonial boundary, though his name remained a terror to a large portion of Stellenbosch. The northern line Macartney had proclaimed on the 14th of July 1798 still ran on paper to the Koussie or Buffalo; the island in the Orange sat outside it, and the commando of 1799 could not cross to the stronghold. [3]
With the San on the north-eastern frontier there was at this time a cessation of hostilities. In July 1798 Macartney had directed fieldcornets Floris Visser and Jacob Gideon Louw to make peace by furnishing breeding cattle and periodical presents. Cows and sheep were collected by free gifts; the wild people who could be got together accepted, and were told they would not be molested if they kept north of the proclaimed boundary. In December 1798 Visser asked for trinkets; beads, tinderboxes, rings, pocket mirrors and knives were sent. In 1799 the scheme, apparently so admirable, proved a failure. As the San were without government, none but those who personally received cattle considered themselves bound; the stock collected by subscription was at length exhausted; there was great waste among the new cattle-breeders; and savages farther inland fell upon those not living according to the traditions of their race and plundered them of everything. [3]
In March 1799 the London missionary society commenced its labours in South Africa. Its first agents were the reverend Dr. J. T. Vanderkemp, the reverend J. J. Kicherer, and Messrs. James Edmonds and William Edwards, who took passage from England in the Hillsborough, a convict ship bound to Botany Bay. They received a warm welcome from many residents in Capetown, and a South African missionary society, still in existence when the century turned, was formed to assist in the conversion of the heathen. Within a few weeks the two laymen were ordained in the church at Roodezand. Vanderkemp and Edmonds proceeded to Xhosa country and attempted a station close to Gaika’s kraal; after a short time Edmonds abandoned the effort and went to India. Vanderkemp remained, though he found the Xhosa indisposed to listen, and the European renegades at the kraal gave him much annoyance. After a residence of over a year he left for Graaff Reinet to instruct Khoikhoi. Kicherer, a clergyman of the reformed church of Holland, and Edwards went north to try a station among the San on the Zak river. Pioneers were speedily reinforced from England and Holland; a society at Rotterdam sent agents to cooperate, and soon there were several stations beyond the northern border. [3] [4]
At the Paarl, in the old Drakenstein congregation, the church authorities in 1799 considered that their building was not well shaped, and built of bad bricks. They obtained expert opinion about its condition. A new church and a plan from Captain Thibault would wait on another calendar; what 1799 fixed was the verdict on the old walls. From the gardens of 1652 the colony had kept its Dutch pulpits and its French names in the Berg-river valley; the year that brought Vanderkemp in a convict ship also told the Paarl that its bricks would not stand. [8]
Sceptre Wrecked — 5 November 1799
In the afternoon of the 5th of November 1799 a heavy north-west gale set into Table Bay, an unusual event at that period of the year. Among the vessels at anchor was the English sixty-four Sceptre, carrying sixty-four guns and, all told, a complement of 491 souls. At noon she had fired the number of guns usual in commemoration of the Gunpowder Plot, and some of her officers and sailors then went ashore. A little after dark she began to drag. Other anchors were dropped; when all failed to hold, a couple of cannon were attached to cables and lowered. She slowly drifted in, and struck on a ledge of rocks close to Fort Knokke, where she went to pieces immediately. Next morning the beach was covered with her fragments and with the bodies of her captain, eleven officers, and nearly three hundred seamen and marines who perished with her. The Castle of 1652 had watched many winter wrecks in Table Bay; this one came in November, on a wind that was not supposed to blow. [3]
The Oldenburg, a Danish ship of the line of sixty-four guns, parted soon after the Sceptre. Instead of dropping other anchors she set her head-sails and steered for a sandy beach, upon which she was cast; the ship was lost, the lives of all on board were saved. The same course was followed by the English whaler Sierra Leone, the American ships Hannah and Anubis, and three small craft, all of which were lost, but their crews got safely to land. The north-wester of the 5th thus took an English sixty-four to pieces on the Knokke ledge and ran a Danish sixty-four and five other hulls onto sand, with a different bill for lives. [3]
Five days after the wreck, on the 10th of November, a French brig, La Rose, with forty-eight slaves, was taken into Table Bay by some of the men of the Collector. Hogan, not to be baulked after Dundas’s intimation that no more slaves would be landed until ministers’ pleasure was known, had equipped and armed that vessel under Captain D. Smart, which sailed from Capetown on a privateering expedition on the 13th of March 1799. Under the law of the war a French ship with slaves could be seized, and when adjudged lawful prize by the Vice-Admiralty Court the slaves, after two rixdollars a head, might be sold for the captors. It was stated that La Rose had been captured off the Maine Islands. The roadstead that had broken the Sceptre on the 5th thus received, on the 10th, a prize in the slave war Hogan was running from the Castle’s shadow. [4]
Table Bay in November therefore held, in one week, the fragments of a sixty-four, a Danish hull on the sand, and a French brig with forty-eight souls for auction. The gardens of 1652 had been planted so that fleets might water and be gone; calendar 1799 counted wreck, prize and duty on the same beach. [3] [4]
Yonge Takes the Oaths — 10 December 1799
Upon Macartney’s retirement the king’s ministers selected as governor an old baronet, Sir George Yonge. The grounds of the appointment were uncertain: he had filled important situations without displaying ability of a high order. From 1754 to 1794 he had represented Honiton in the house of commons. He had been vice-treasurer of Ireland, a lord commissioner of the admiralty, from 1784 to 1794 one of the secretaries at war, and more recently master of the mint. He may therefore have had a claim to a lucrative appointment. On the 9th of December 1799 he arrived in Table Bay in the ship-of-war Lancaster, and at eleven o’clock on the following morning, in presence of all the officials and people of note in the town, he took the oaths of office. Dundas was still on the frontier. The acting governor of eleven months thus handed the civil sword while the eastern truce was still only a word, and Fort Frederick still new stone. [3] [4]
Owing to various causes, the prisoners sent from Boschberg on the 6th of April were not brought to trial before August of the following year. For nearly fifteen months they sat in the Castle. In those days the treatment of prisoners was very different from what it later became. Men whose early lives had been passed in active exercise in the open air suffered from scanty prison diet and the closeness of their quarters. With them were detained persons charged with political offences; in one apartment eighty-six prisoners were locked up at night. It was rarely that any of their friends could obtain permission to visit them. Relatives, people in Capetown, and even the burgher senate, sent petitions begging less rigorous treatment; the authorities thought an example necessary, and held that, considering the charge, they were being dealt with leniently. Calendar 1799 therefore closed with the twenty still untried behind the Castle walls that had stood since 1652. [3] [4] [7]
On Christmas Day a French lugger, Le Africano, with twenty-six slaves, was sent in by the Collector. Those on board stated that she had been captured while at anchor off the Seychelles. The same 25th of December Maynier received his commission over Swellendam and Graaff Reinet. The year thus ended with a prize in Table Bay, a resident commissioner for the two eastern drostdies, a new governor under oath, and an acting general still on the Fish. Hogan’s cruise, begun on the 13th of March, had by Christmas put two French slavers into the bay; the Collector herself had not yet come home. [3] [4]
From the gardens of 1652 to the stone square at Algoa Bay the colony of 1799 had stretched a British post farther east than the Company had ever garrisoned, and had named a truce that the farmers would not call peace. Van Jaarsveld sat in the Castle; Ndlambe sat in the Zuurveld; Afrikaner sat on his island; Vanderkemp sat at Gaika’s kraal; Yonge sat in the governor’s chair. The year did not open the trial of the twenty, and it did not drive the Xhosa over the Fish. What it left on the ground was Fort Frederick, a wrecked sixty-four, and an oath taken at eleven in the morning of the 10th of December while Dundas was still on the frontier. [3]