Boer History1819 at the Cape of Good Hope: Grahamstown Attacked, Makana Surrenders, Settlers Voted
Willshire and the Line — January–March 1819
Lord Charles Henry Somerset had governed the Cape since the 6th of April 1814. The eastern line he had to hold this year was the Fish. In December 1818 Lieutenant-Colonel Brereton of the Royal African corps crossed that river, joined Gaika’s people, and took 23000 cattle from Ndlambe, the uncle and rival whom the castle treated as the enemy of its chosen paramount. Brereton then disbanded the burghers at Grahamstown. Ndlambe used the gap: he drove Gaika into the mountains near the junction of the Baviaans’ and Fish, and poured his people west of the Fish. Farmers between the Fish and the Sundays, unless they sat near a post, went into lagers and lost nearly all their movable property. That is why January opened with Albany almost as completely in Ndlambe’s hands as it had been before the expulsion of 1812. [3] [7]
On the 14th of January the remaining 29 head were taken from Paul Bester, and he abandoned the place. On the 11th nearly 200 cattle were taken from different farms. At one of them a Khoikhoi woman and her daughter were left with the sheep; the mother escaped, and the daughter’s throat was cut. On the 29th 69 head were taken from J. Oosthuisen and the Khoikhoi who guarded them was stabbed to death; 23 horses went from Cornelius Meyer’s and two Khoikhoi were murdered there; from Philip Botha’s at Botha’s Hill, near Grahamstown, 133 cattle were driven and another Khoikhoi put to death. A small party of the Cape Corps followed that last spoor to Hermanus Kraal, near the later Fort Brown; a large body surrounded them and 5 were pierced with assegais. The cattle were not regained. [4]
Patrols were kept out day and night, and they were treated as if they were not there. Ensign Hunt of the Royal African corps left the post at the Fish drift on the evening of the 31st of January with a small party. In the Fish bush they were surrounded, and before they could form he and one private were killed and three wounded. His body was found the next day, naked and mutilated; the stone later put over him named the night of the 1st of February and his age as 20. Two days afterwards Captain Gethin of the 72nd met the same fate. On the evening of the 3rd of February word came to De Bruin’s Drift that a Khoikhoi in charge of 136 cattle had been murdered between the post and Wentzel Coetzee’s. Gethin went at once with 7 mounted men; infantry entered the bush for the cattle. In thicker cover a large body rushed them. He fired once, had no time to reload, struck with the butt, and fell with 30 assegai wounds. Peacock and MacDonald of the mounted party were also killed. The cattle, horses, arms, and ammunition went with the attackers. Gethin’s body was recovered and buried in Grahamstown, in the military cemetery then behind the drostdy. 17 whites and 13 Khoikhoi were murdered in these weeks. [3] [4]
Lower Bushman’s River collected at a temporary post at Rautenbach’s Drift; others made a strong camp at the Addo. The Sundays bush and the Zuurberg again carried the war-cry. On the 5th of February J. Meyer wrote to his fieldcornet Fourie that a soldier had been murdered at his brother’s, all the cattle taken, and that they were gathered at his place not knowing how they would get away: one could have no idea but that the whole of Xhosa country was there. On the 9th Colonel Cuyler, landdrost of Uitenhage, sent to Cape Town a long list of outrages and the fear that his drostdy might be cut off from the border posts. Brereton, seeing how little he could hold, sent Major Fraser, deputy landdrost at Grahamstown, to the castle so that the governor might hear it from an authentic mouth. Fraser rode about 600 miles in a little over 6 days and arrived on the 16th of February. Somerset at once ordered Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas Willshire of the 38th, then in Cape Town, to the east with the light infantry of that regiment. Brereton had asked to retire to England on private affairs; that was granted, and Willshire was to relieve him. [4]
The transport Favourite, under Captain Hercules Robinson, was to take the troops from Simon’s Bay. A dispute over the governor’s power to press the ship delayed the sailing; when she did go she was disabled rounding Cape Agulhas and had to put back. The men were re-embarked in the Alacrity with Willshire and Fraser and reached Algoa Bay. On the 21st of February the governor directed Willshire to take the frontier command. His instructions were Brereton’s over again: permanent tranquillity of the border, no enlargement of territory, colonists forbidden to cross, Ndlambe to be punished first and, if he resisted, seized. On the 3rd of March a strong burgher force was called. The whole colony was required: 400 from Graaff-Reinet, 300 from Uitenhage, 300 each from Tulbagh and Swellendam, 250 from George, 200 from Stellenbosch, and 100 from the Cape — 1850 mounted burghers. With them were to stand 1100 infantry of the 38th, the 72nd, and the Royal African corps, 32 royal artillery, 155 of the Cape regiment mounted, 150 time-expired men of that regiment, and 32 of the colonial troop: 3352 in all. Drought still held the frontier, and horse-sickness was unusually severe. 220 of the 300 horses with the Swellendam contingent died on the road. Before the commando could be got together, Grahamstown was attacked. [3] [4]
Grahamstown — 22 April 1819
The village at the bottom of its basin had not made great strides. Buildings of all kinds probably did not exceed 30, and they stood far apart on rough grass; High Street was still only a suspicion of a line from the few houses on the erven sold in 1815. The prison on erf 30 was still the first house built in the place. A few yards down, Dietz’s house of 1818 stood on erven 28 and 26. Captain Page’s house of the same year stood on erf 22. On the top corner lot, erf 33, was the largest house in the village, two storeys, belonging to Mr. Potgieter; his niece, then Mrs. Huntly, was in it on the day of the attack. The East Barracks — the Wit Rug Kamp — seemed far from the village, reached by paths through bush. Near them a school of about 200 Khoikhoi children, whose fathers served or had served in the Cape regiment, was at its letters. To wipe out so small a place looked, from Ndlambe’s numbers, no great work. [4]
The troops in the place were 45 of the 38th, 135 of the Royal African corps, 32 armed men unattached, and 121 of the Cape corps. Another count for the day of the fight put 39 of the colonial troop and 32 armed inhabitants with the rest, and about 270 muskets in the line that met the rush. Hendrik Nutka, trusted as Gaika’s messenger and interpreter, had been in the village some days and had given Makana the exact strength of the force and every circumstance of importance. Makana was not born to high rank. His mother was held in reputation as a wise woman; he himself had risen as councillor and prophet at Ndlambe’s side. On the 21st of April a Xhosa arrived with a defiant message from Makana to Willshire: he would breakfast with the colonel the next morning. Willshire sent back that Makana would find all things in readiness, and treated it as insolent bravado. On the morning of the 22nd he left the village to inspect horses about 12 miles off toward Botha’s Hill. [3] [4]
A little after ten o’clock, while the inspection was going on, Willshire saw the hills away east toward Governor’s Kop swarming with men rushing on the town. He ordered an immediate retreat and barely escaped capture. About the same time a Khoikhoi herd on the flats above the village ran to the East Barracks and told Captain Trappes of the 72nd, next in command. Civilians did not know until about two hours later, though stragglers with shields and assegais, ox-tail fringes at elbow and knee, were already loitering on the surrounding hills. About midday a small party of them entered Potgieter’s kitchen just as dinner was being served; the inmates fled down High Street to the officers’ mess and were later taken to the East Barracks. By about one o’clock some 10000 occupied the north-east ridge from Makana’s Kop toward Belmont Valley. Trappes left 60 of the Royal African corps under Lieutenant Cartwright at the barracks and drew the rest in a line from the barracks toward where the railway station later stood. Willshire and the cavalry got back in time. [3] [4]
When full in view they arranged the attack. About 1000 were detached to occupy a position a few miles east and cut off aid from Blaauw Krantz, where the Swellendam burghers under Commandant Botha were posted — a fact Nutka had carried. The remainder formed three columns. On a signal they rushed with war-cries. Two columns, led by Dushane and by Kobe, son of the late Cungwa and brother of Pato, hurled themselves on Willshire’s band. The soldiers stood until the foremost were a few paces off — about 35 in one count — and then poured musketry and artillery. The advance checked; the troops charged and put those two columns to flight. The largest column went at the barracks under Makana. He had ordered the assegai shafts broken short for a hand-to-hand close. Cartwright met them with musketry; under Makana’s eye they pressed on until they entered the square. There they took a fire they could not answer with short shafts. When they fled, 102 dead lay in the square. They carried their wounded away. [3] [4]
The other columns rallied and came again. They were met as before by cannon and musket, and some of their leaders were picked off by Khoikhoi hunters under the old captain Boesak, who came into Grahamstown at the most critical moment. Dushane and Kobe were forced to retire a second time; when Makana’s column joined them in flight, no attempt was made to renew. The whole loss cannot be stated. It was put at 1000 to 1300. About 500 bodies were counted; many more died of wounds before the Fish. Three of Ndlambe’s minor sons were among the killed. Nutka was with the column that tried the barracks; he was wounded, taken, and immediately shot. On the English side 3 men were killed and 5 wounded; one of the three whites was Captain Huntly, whose wife had fled from Potgieter’s table. One account put the force in the village at over 300 and the attacking force at 10000, and had them at the place at early dawn; another had the rush soon after sunrise, a third the ridge occupied about one o’clock. The village held. [3] [4] [7]
Albany Until the Columns — April–July 1819
The London society’s station Theopolis was twice attacked, but only by a small force, which the Khoikhoi residents beat off. The Moravian station Enon, on the Witte, a branch of the Sundays, about 30 miles north of Uitenhage, was not so fortunate. Somerset had granted the Moravians that tract in June 1816 for the Khoikhoi of the east. On the 14th of April — eight days before Grahamstown — Mrs. Schmitt wrote from the Witte to Cuyler that they had hoped the commando which had been there would help them, but that day they had had a more severe attack than before: all the cattle gone, 8 of their best men murdered not far from the house on the road to Coerney, 8 guns taken, then 9, no oxen to flee with, women crying for husbands and children for fathers. The Uitenhage commando was in readiness. A large part of it, with four spans of oxen, went at once, gave safe conduct, and carried the effects into Uitenhage. The whole station — about 150 men, women, and children — was got out. They remained in Uitenhage several months. Some of the men worked at trades; most had to be rationed on bread and meat at government expense. No special attempt was made to take the murderers or the cattle: Ndlambe was so completely master that it was useless to do more than hold life until the invasion was ready. The missionaries and people had hardly gone when the place was pillaged and destroyed. [3] [4]
Shortly after the 22nd the burghers who had been called assembled, but nearly 3 months — over 4 months from the first preparations, in one count — elapsed before the invasion of Xhosa country was complete. After the drought broke there was a severe epidemic of horse-sickness which carried off hundreds of animals. Scarcity of horses was the chief delay; even in a good year the scale of the operations, the fear of another Brereton failure, and the difficulty of provisioning such a force in the east would have taken time. In the meanwhile Ndlambe’s people had their own way. Farms stood abandoned, cattle practically left in their hands, the white inhabitants in flight before them; they were again virtual masters of the Zuurveld. Cuyler sent a commando into the Zuurberg once the Uitenhage burghers were up; none were found there, but the signs showed both people and cattle had moved toward the Keiskama. Those parts of Uitenhage distant from the boundary still harboured large numbers and suffered daily. [3] [4]
Makana was the leading actor in the movement that had brought 10000 to the ridge above Grahamstown. His messengers were everywhere east of the Fish, calling on all true Xhosa to take part against the Europeans and the Gaikas, promising victory to those who would do their duty and denouncing the wrath of the spirits against those who held back. Ndlambe used him; Hintsa beyond the Kei stood with that house. Gaika, broken at Amalinde in 1818, was still the ally the castle had chosen, and the instructions to Willshire still named Ndlambe as the object of first importance. If he could be taken by surprise and compelled to retire permanently beyond the Keiskama, so much the better; nothing less than certainty of complete success was to warrant a movement, and rather than risk another withdrawal the castle would wait. The 22nd of April had shown what waiting on the colonial side of the Fish had cost. [3] [4] [7]
When the columns were at last ready, the force on the frontier was 1850 mounted burghers, 1100 of the 38th and 72nd and the Royal African corps, 32 artillerymen, 220 of the Cape corps, and 150 Khoikhoi levies. 700 soldiers of the line and 150 of the Cape corps were left to guard the posts. The remainder was formed into three columns. What Brereton had not finished in December, and what the 22nd of April had made impossible to leave unfinished, was now to be tried with numbers that the castle had not put across the Fish in 1818. [3]
To the Kei — July–August 1819
On the 22nd of July one column, under Landdrost Stockenstrom of Graaff-Reinet, encamped at the Winterberg. On the 31st of the same month Willshire at the head of the central column crossed the Fish at De Bruin’s Drift, and the right column under Major Fraser crossed near the sea. They scoured the jungles along the Fish, drove the hostile clans eastward with heavy loss, and followed them to the banks of the Kei. About 30000 head of cattle were seized, and all the loose property belonging to the enemy was destroyed. Ndlambe’s power was broken; many of his adherents were killed; those who remained alive were reduced to destitute fugitives. The combined burgher force and British troops were also described as invading in July, defeating Ndlambe’s house, burning the chief kraals, and capturing large flocks. [3] [7]
On the 15th of August Makana surrendered to Stockenstrom, stating that he did so to procure peace for his people, who were starving. He took the step without the consent or even the knowledge of his followers, who were ready to perish with him. A few days after his surrender a small party was seen at the edge of a thicket near Willshire’s camp, making signs that they desired a parley. Willshire, Stockenstrom, and another officer went to meet them unarmed. Two men approached, councillors of Ndlambe and of Makana. After a few questions about the prisoner, Makana’s councillor gave a brief history of the war, asserting that it was unjust on the European side, and ended with sentences taken down at the time by Stockenstrom: they wished for peace, to rest in their huts, to get milk for their children; their wives wished to till the land; but the troops covered the plains and swarmed in the thickets, where they could not distinguish man from woman, and shot all. They were wanted to submit to Gaika. That man’s face was fair, but his heart was insincere. Leave him to himself; make peace with us; set Makana free, and Ndlambe, Kobe, and the others would come at any time fixed. If war went on, the last man might be killed, but Gaika should not rule over the followers of those who thought him a woman. [3]
Makana was sent a prisoner to Robben Island, where political offenders as well as persons convicted of crime were then kept. Hostilities ceased with his surrender, though the commandos were kept in the field to prevent the fugitive adherents of Ndlambe from returning and settling west of the Keiskama. He had four wives and left one son, Umjusa, and four daughters; that household detail was not what the Fish posts needed. What they needed was that the man who had ordered shafts broken short for the barrack square should not again stand on the ridge above High Street. [3] [7]
Ndlambe himself was believed to be a fugitive beyond the Kei. Kasa had fallen in the war. Eno, Botumane, Fato, Habana, and Gasela would later be got to a conference; they were not yet in the governor’s camp in August. The Fish jungles that had covered the December cattle and the April approach were scoured; the Kei had been shown to the columns; 30000 head were in colonial hands. That was the military result. The political result still had to be taken at a streamlet called the Gwanga, once the governor himself came east. [3]
Gwanga and the Vacant Tract — October 1819
The governor proceeded to the frontier, and on the 15th of October at the Gwanga had a conference with Gaika and as many of the chiefs lately in arms as had surrendered or could be induced to meet him. Eno, Botumane, Fato, Habana, and Gasela were present. The Fish along its lower course, bordered by dense and extensive thickets of useless shrubs that could not be burned, was a bad boundary. Thieves could lie in wait there; once stolen cattle were in the belt, rescue was next to impossible. The paths were elephant tracks except where roads had been cut at enormous labour. Clearing that bush during the war had been so hard that the military officers were unanimous that Xhosa people ought not to be allowed to get possession of it again. They thought the Keiskama, the next large stream east, would form a much better line: its banks more open, its course shorter, because the mountain range in which it rises approached more closely to the sea. Somerset adopted that view. The point of the conference was not a treaty of equals. It was whether the Fish thickets would be left in Xhosa hands after a year that had shown what those thickets could cover. [3] [4]
The land between the Keiskama and the Fish, from the coast up to the Gwanga where the conference sat, belonged by hereditary right to the Gunukwebe clan. They had been among the most active enemies; the governor conceived it forfeited. Above the Gwanga the greater portion of the territory between the old colonial boundary and the Keiskama had always been unoccupied, but the kraals that had stood in it before the war belonged to Gaika’s adherents, and the whole might fairly be claimed by him. Somerset sought to get it under colour of an amicable arrangement. He proposed that the Keiskama should be the future boundary, so that between the two races there might be a vacant tract, patrolled by soldiers. Gaika felt that he was in the governor’s power. Even then, with Ndlambe a fugitive, Makana a prisoner, and his other enemies prostrate, he knew that if the white man’s countenance were withdrawn there was nothing but trouble in store. He asked that the valley of the Tyumie might be left to him: it was there, he said, that he was born, and there he wished to live. He was asked how he could say he was born in the Tyumie valley when at the time of his birth the whole of the upper country west of the Keiskama had no occupants but San. He replied that he did not mean he was actually born there, but he had gone to live there as a boy, and if the governor would let him keep that valley he would agree to the cession of the land beyond. Somerset consented. [3]
With Gaika’s nominal concurrence the western boundary of Xhosa country was declared to be the ridge of hills branching off from the Winterberg and forming the watershed between the Kat and Tyumie, the Tyumie to the Keiskama, and the Keiskama to the sea. The terms were not committed to writing, and one point was left obscure: where the ridge met the Tyumie. For many years the Gaga, a streamlet running through the later village of Alice, was commonly regarded as the connection. It was understood that the territory between the new line and the old colonial boundary was to be occupied only by soldiers. The other chiefs present were required to acknowledge Gaika as their head; they did not venture to refuse. None objected to the new boundary, but they were not asked to agree to it: Somerset would treat only with Gaika. Gaika had no right under Xhosa law to cede an inch of ground, and if he had, his consent here was not freely given. The new frontier was also described as the Chumie and Keiskama, from the source of the Chumie in the Amatola to the sea, and the district between that line and the Fish left uninhabited, no farmers allowed, a military force to patrol and keep Xhosa people out. [3] [7]
After the conference the governor established temporary military camps on the Gaga and the Gwanga, enlarged the Cape corps, and permitted the burghers to return to their homes. He selected a site for a permanent post and directed a strong pentagonal fort to be built, which he named Fort Willshire, on a slope gently rising from a long deep reach of the Keiskama a few miles below the junction of the Tyumie, where the river makes its nearest approach to the old colonial boundary. Before the close of the year a commencement was made with the walls, stone, neatly cut at the angles. A detachment of the 72nd was stationed there under canvas, and nearly the whole engineer force in the country was employed upon the work. Another post was placed on the Gwanga to control the country lately inhabited by Congo and his minor chiefs. In a despatch dated from the Gwanga camp on the 15th of October Somerset told Bathurst that the burghers, worn out by incessant fatigue, many months in an inclement season, nearly all dismounted, the greater part of their horses perished, had become most anxious for repose; nearly 2000 had been in the field for 7 months, mounted and equipped at their own expense and without pay, finding themselves in six months’ provisions, losing near three-quarters of their horses, submitting even to want of shoes and clothes without a murmur. He then ordered the irregular force disbanded and shortly afterwards returned to Cape Town, where he arrived on the 1st of November. After the burghers went, he considered 1400 or 1500 men the lowest need on the new line; troops then serving were 1775, but if the Royal African corps went home for disbandment the number would fall to 1219. He therefore re-augmented the Cape corps — a measure distasteful to the Dutch inhabitants, and to himself, but in the circumstances unavoidable. Women were given until the 2nd of November to carry corn, garden produce, and other belongings over the Keiskama. Willshire’s parties scoured the bushy parts of the vacant tract and drove remaining stragglers across that river. [3] [4]
Worcester, the Census, and the Courts — 1819
The east was not the only map the governor was covering with family titles. Early in 1819 he selected a site in the Breede valley for a village, two loan places named Langerug and Boodedraai, the buildings on which were purchased in March for about 3750 pounds. It sat on a plain with slope enough for drainage, good water from the Hex, the great road down the valley through it, the pass of the Hex into the Karoo beginning there, and in this year it had just been found that a road through the Drakenstein mountains could be made by the French Hoek pass, almost a straight line from Capetown. He named the village Worcester from his elder brother’s title. On the 20th of October a deputy landdrost was stationed there in the district of Tulbagh, with the same powers as those at Clanwilliam, Caledon, Grahamstown, and Cradock. J. F. van de Graaff was removed from Cradock to Worcester, and was succeeded at Cradock by Captain W. Harding, a retired officer of the Cape corps. [3]
According to the census of 1819 the population of the colony consisted of 42217 white people of all ages, 31696 slaves, 24433 Khoikhoi, 1883 free blacks, and 1428 negro apprentices taken out of captured slave ships. By a notice of the high court, which received the governor’s approval on the 4th of December, changes in the method of administering justice were legalised. The powers of the courts of landdrost and heemraden in the country districts were enlarged in criminal cases, so that they could sentence to scourging, imprisonment, or banishment for short periods. District secretaries acted as public prosecutors in those courts; the landdrost and two heemraden formed a quorum. Cases of a more serious nature were tried by the circuit court of two judges; if the penalty would be death, the accused was brought before the high court in Capetown, the chief justice and six judges. Landdrosts acted as prosecutors on circuit, the fiscal in the high court. In Capetown two judges sat daily on such cases as came before landdrosts and heemraden in the country. [3]
On the 3rd of February — the same day Gethin fell at De Bruin’s Drift — Johannes Petrus Serrurier of Hanau, minister of the Dutch church at Cape Town since November 1760, died aged 84 years and 28 days. On the 26th of February the reverend John Philip and the reverend John Campbell of Kingsland arrived in Cape Town, deputed by the London Missionary Society to inspect and report upon its stations. Bethelsdorp and Theopolis were in disorder; Griquatown was still what the last year had called a cradle of mischief. In July Henry Ellis became deputy colonial secretary. In December the reverend John Brownlee was induced to sever his connection with the London society and was appointed missionary with Gaika; he did not occupy the post in this year. Enon, granted to the Moravians on the Witte in June 1816, stood destroyed; upon the restoration of peace it would be occupied again. In this year a gentleman named Peter Tait attempted to introduce immigrants as Moodie had done in 1817; only 25 individuals found their way to the colony through his agency. [3] [4] [8]
Somerset had in 1818 requested leave of absence to arrange family matters in England. The secretary of state granted it. The office of lieutenant-governor had been abolished when the garrison was reduced in 1816. To provide an officer of position during the absence, Major-General Sir Rufane Shawe Donkin was attached temporarily to the military staff at the Cape and directed to assume the administration as acting governor. He did not take the oaths in this year. [3]
Fifty Thousand Pounds — 1819
For several years after the peace that followed Napoleon’s fall, much distress was felt by the labouring classes in Great Britain, and emigration was commonly spoken of as the only effectual remedy. The Cape was everywhere thinly peopled, and in some places almost without inhabitants. Somerset recommended to the secretary of state that British settlers should be sent to occupy the Zuurveld, and advised that large tracts should be given to men of means who would employ from 30 to 50 English labourers. He had, in a despatch of the 18th of December 1817, told Bathurst that he was much swayed by a strong wish to be able to withdraw the military detachments from that quarter, and that settlers should be made aware that their property would in some measure be exposed to plunder unless their own vigilance and courage considerably aided in protecting it. The vacant belt declared at the Gwanga in October made that recommendation sharper: a thin white population on the old Fish line was exactly what the April attack had shown could not hold. Bathurst tried to turn the tide of emigration from America to the Cape. In May a petition signed by Finlay Matheson on behalf of 800 inhabitants of the Isle of Skye, turned out of crofts, asked for facilities to America and was told the government could not send them there but was disposed to favour the Cape. The mayor of Leeds, asking about Canada for cloth-dressers thrown out by machinery, was told that the Cape, from climate and soil, afforded greater facilities. [3] [4]
Beyond general recommendation the government had not yet initiated a definite scheme. Early in 1819 three private gentlemen, Vernon, Harberd, and Stracey, published a pamphlet on emigration to South Africa. The London press took it up. On the 18th of June the Times called southern Africa the most precious object of colonial policy and a field for people who could not be provided for at home. The impetus served to urge the question on Lords and Commons; whatever differences there were on other matters, they united on the expediency of this. On the 12th of July, the last business day of the session, Nicholas Vansittart, Chancellor of the Exchequer, persuaded the House of Commons to grant 50000 pounds to assist persons disposed to settle at the Cape. The ministry proposed that sum just before parliament was prorogued, and the money was voted without demur. Applications for passages were called for. A printed circular from Downing Street set the conditions. [3] [4]
An offer was made of 100 acres to each settler of means, and another 100 acres for every male labourer he should bring out. Groups of not less than 10 families possessing a small capital could combine and elect one of themselves as leader and representative, when each family would be entitled to 100 acres. The land was to be surveyed without charge; it was not to be burdened with taxes during the first 10 years; for 5 years the settlers were not to be required to pay district rates or assessments. Titles were to be issued only after 3 years’ occupation. The imperial government undertook ocean transit. Each party of 100 families might nominate a clergyman of any denomination of Christians, whose salary in whole or in part would be paid by the colonial government. For every male adult, before leaving Great Britain, 10 pounds was to be deposited with the emigration commissioners, to be returned on arrival in money, provisions, agricultural implements at cost, or conveyance from the coast inland. Applications from heads of parties representing in all nearly 90000 individuals were sent in, from which 1034 English families, 412 Scotch, 174 Irish, and 42 Welsh were selected. The largest party approved was 400 Highland Scotch families under Captain Grant; most of these afterwards changed their minds and did not embark. Four large English parties stood: 102 families under Thomas Wilson with the reverend William Boardman; 100 under Hezekiah Sephton with the reverend William Shaw; 96 under John Bailie; 55 under Thomas Calton. An Irish party of 76 families stood under William Parker. The others were groups of 10 to 40 families. In many instances the women and children remained behind. [3]
Toward the end of the year cartoons circulated in Britain under the title of blessings of emigration to the Cape of Forlorn Hope. The Colonial Office was nevertheless deluged with applications. The first transports — the Chapman and the Nautilus — left Gravesend on the 3rd of December. Ellis, deputy colonial secretary since July, was the officer who would later be sent in advance to make preparations; Captain Moresby of the Menai would later offer to assist the landing at Algoa Bay. Those two ships did not open Table Bay before the year closed. [3] [4]