Boer History1820 at the Cape of Good Hope: Donkin, the Settlers, and Makana Drowned
Donkin and the Preparations — January–March 1820
Lord Charles Henry Somerset had governed the Cape since the 6th of April 1814. In 1818 he asked leave to arrange family matters in England. The secretary of state granted it. The office of lieutenant-governor had been abolished when the garrison was cut in 1816, and General Meade had been replaced in his military capacity by a man of much lower rank. To keep an officer of position in the castle while Somerset was away, Major-General Sir Rufane Shawe Donkin was attached temporarily to the military staff and directed to assume the administration with the title of acting governor. He had arrived from India shortly before, on sick leave. The point of the appointment was not ceremony. Parliament had voted 50000 pounds in July 1819 to send British families to the Zuurveld, the empty tract east of the Sundays that the 1819 war had left to be filled. Someone had to be on the spot when the ships arrived. [3] [4]
On the 12th of January Somerset handed the government over. On the 13th Donkin took the oaths of office. In the evening of the same day Somerset embarked in the ship-of-war Sappho and set sail for England. What hung on those two days was the chair itself: from the 13th the Cape was under an acting soldier-governor who had not planned the settler scheme, and who would have to receive the people already on the water. [3] [4]
Before he went, Somerset had mapped the Zuurveld for the people the parliamentary grant would send. Grahamstown was to be the starting point. Abandoned farms nearest that military centre were to be occupied first, then locations along the old line of posts now given up between Grahamstown and the mouth of the Great Fish — a country of great fertility, he said, capable of maintaining with industry a large population. Those parts filled, attention might turn south and south-west as far as the Bushman’s, all that watered by the Kowie, Kasouga, and Kareiga. He wanted the grants small, to push agriculture rather than large herds, and to form a barrier on the Fish. That design mattered because the Fish thickets had been the cover for the April 1819 attack on Grahamstown; a thin scatter of large cattle farms would not hold the line. Mr Knobel was instructed to survey arable and garden land and to describe the springs. The plans were in Capetown before the first ship arrived. [4]
Donkin entered the work at once. On his first day of office he told Earl Bathurst that he meant to go to the interior to be on the spot when the settlers arrived, and by his presence to dispel the despondency likely under the circumstances. He had time, and he had Colonel Bird at his elbow. He was no better informed of the extent of the movement than Somerset had been. Ship after ship would open Table Bay, but no communication came from the Colonial Office. On the 25th of February Bird wrote to Colonel Cuyler that His Excellency had no further official account of the intended departure, yet the public papers said 9 transports had been taken. Camp equipage for 1500 persons was sent to Algoa Bay. The commissariat was instructed to have rations ready for 2000 for one month. Field-cornets of Uitenhage and Graaff-Reinet travelled farm to farm to get every available waggon to the bay when the ships came. The vacant tract between the Fish and the Keiskama, declared at the Gwanga on the 15th of October 1819, still stood unoccupied except by soldiers. Fort Willshire’s stone walls, begun before the close of that year, were still rising; a detachment of the 72nd remained under canvas there. [3] [4]
Chapman and Nautilus — March–May 1820
The first transports, the Chapman and the Nautilus, had left Gravesend on the 3rd of December 1819. They arrived together in Table Bay on the 17th of March. They were followed by the Garland, Canada, Belle Alliance, Brilliant, Zoroaster, Aurora, and Sir George Osborne from London; the John, Stentor, and Albury from Liverpool; the Northampton, Ocean, Weymouth, and Duke of Marlborough from Portsmouth; the Kennersley Castle from Bristol; and the Amphitrite from Torbay. Altogether — men, women, and children — these ships brought 3053 individuals as immigrants. A few mechanics and labourers remained in Capetown, where employment was offered. The rest, after taking in fresh provisions at Capetown or Simonstown, were meant for the eastern border. That is why March opened the year that the July 1819 grant had been meant to fill: the people were no longer an estimate in Downing Street; they were in Table Bay. [3]
The large Irish party under William Parker, and three smaller associations under John Ingram, William Synnot, and Thomas Butler, embarked at Cork in the East Indian and the Fanny and arrived in Simon’s Bay on the 30th of April and the 1st of May. Very few in these parties understood anything about agriculture; most had been in commerce. They were accompanied by the reverend Francis McCleland. Parker wished to settle near Saldanha Bay and establish a large fishery. The government declined, and allotted land to the four Irish parties close to the sub-drostdy of Clanwilliam. Dissension had broken out on the passage; some of Parker’s people refused to acknowledge him as leader. After a little pressure 123 men, with 70 women and 147 children, were set on shore at Saldanha Bay and proceeded to Clanwilliam. [3]
Under no circumstances could those people have made a living from the ground at Clanwilliam. Some refused to be located with the others anywhere. Parker himself refused to return there. He remained for a time at Saldanha, endeavouring, in a visionary project of a great fishery and a city of New Cork, to possess himself of land already in occupation, of government buildings, and of small islands along the coast. Finding the colonial government unwilling to listen, he began to menace those in authority with his friends and the House of Commons. On his return from the Zuurveld Donkin saw the mistake. On the 25th of July he issued a notice offering the Clanwilliam people conveyance to Albany by sea and land at government expense and, in consideration of the lost ploughing season, free rations until they could provide for themselves. Some preferred to seek work in Capetown. The greater number accepted and reformed themselves into parties under Scanlen, Francis, Lantham, and Captain Butler. Most of the men drifted to more congenial pursuits than agriculture; a number were later removed at their own request to the east. By the close of 1823 only 6 families and the clergyman would be left at Clanwilliam. [3] [4]
Four small parties, under Charles and Valentine Griffith, Thomas White, and John Neave, were located near the Moravian station of Genadendal in the valley of the river Zonderend. They did not long remain. The Griffiths thought they could do better at Groenekloof on a farm they leased. The others asked for Albany and were sent there by the government before the end of the year. The four parties at the Zonderend found the quantity of land inadequate; the same offer of relocation in Albany was made to them, and with few exceptions it was accepted. By October, practically all who had been assisted by the parliamentary grant were on the eastern frontier. [3] [4]
Algoa Bay — April–June 1820
Henry Ellis, deputy colonial secretary since July 1819, was sent in advance to make preparations. His chief mission was to prevent misunderstanding about the relations in which the settlers stood with the government. He arrived in the Menai on the 29th of April to act as the colonial government’s representative until Donkin himself came east. Circulars dated Algoa Bay, 1 May, were distributed to all who had not already left for the locations. From the moment of landing, all further gratuitous supplies ceased; the hire of waggons for themselves and baggage was to be paid for; from henceforth they were dependent upon themselves. Obedience to heads of parties was declared necessary. Government would communicate only with those heads. In accordance with the agreement made in England, the first instalment of the deposit money was paid to the heads before they left Algoa Bay. Against the second and third instalments were debited provisions, stores, and implements. Gunpowder brought on the transports was stored in the magazine at Fort Frederick and not, in the first instance, allowed inland. The circulars mattered because the people had come as parties under named leaders: if those leaders dissolved, the government had no one to pay, feed, or locate. [3] [4]
Captain Moresby of the ship-of-war Menai offered to assist in landing them at Algoa Bay and accompanied the first transports to that harbour. After taking in fresh provisions at Capetown or Simonstown, the ships proceeded east. The Chapman reached Algoa Bay on the 10th of April; that was the signal for the work to begin. Surf-boats began on the 11th. Provisions were ready for immediate issue; waggons were drawn up on the beach; Cuyler, Captain Evatt, the soldiers, and others were on the spot. The last transport did not arrive there until the 25th of June. When her passengers were safe on shore, the number of British settlers landed on the beach below Fort Frederick was 1020 men, 607 women, and 1032 children. Tents were provided for temporary shelter. Waggons were in readiness to convey them to Albany. English, Scotch, and Irish among them settled mainly where Port Elizabeth, Grahamstown, and the surrounding districts would stand. [3] [4] [7]
Of those who arrived by the Chapman and Nautilus, John Bailie’s large party alone required 91 waggons. The lumbering conveyances took so long to travel to the distant locations and return, while transports followed one another so closely up to the anchorage, that the crowds on the beach grew denser. It was not until the 31st of July that Cuyler could report that the last party had left for its location. Because whooping-cough and other infections had existed on the transports, the settlers were not allowed to travel through Uitenhage; they were directed to a more southerly route, parallel with the coast, until they took a last look at the distant ships from the Zwartkops drift. The inland journey was full of novel experiences: comfortless waggons with spans of 12 or 14 oxen, Dutch drivers, the crack of the whip, a Khoikhoi leader of the front oxen, tracks rather than roads, antelope on the open veld, steep hills, and bushy paths where the tent of the waggon had to push the branches aside. From higher ground they saw desolate country bounded by mountains and covered by bush. [4]
At the first outspan the oxen were freed, the tents pitched, the camp fires lighted. Government tents stood on the beach below Fort Frederick until the waggons could take each party inland. Once on the locations, the means of obtaining food were as primitive as the habitations that would follow. Rations of meat were served out as live sheep, to be driven several miles through bush by people who often knew as little about driving sheep as they did about agriculture. There were no mills, and grain had to be dealt with as it was issued. On the 24th of May circular letters gave permission, for 12 months, to cut wood and thatch — but that leave belonged to people already on the ground, not to the crowds still waiting on the sand for a return span. [4]
Twelve Scotch families under Thomas Pringle had land assigned in the valley of the Baviaans’ river. All the other immigrants set ashore at Algoa Bay were located between the Bushman’s and Fish rivers, the Zuurberg and the sea. A small party of 13 men, 3 women and 8 children under C. Gurney did not go to the Zuurveld, but took up a position at the mouth of the Zwartkops which they called Deal, after Deal in Kent; they were fisher-people. Of the money deposited with the emigration commissioners in England, one-third was now returned to the heads of parties, the remainder being kept back until an account of the expenses incurred by the government could be made out. Under the most favourable circumstances much suffering must have attended the removal of nearly 3000 people from Great Britain to a tract that had never been tilled. The greater number were utterly unfit for agricultural pursuits: retired officers, physicians, surgeons, clerks, and people from factories, who came under the belief that with 100 acres of their own they could employ labour and live in comfort. They were rudely awakened to the fact that the only labour they could depend upon here was that of their own hands. [3] [4]
Bathurst and Port Elizabeth — May–June 1820
On the 29th of April Donkin left Capetown to visit the frontier. He found that the cost of transport of the immigrants from Algoa Bay inland would absorb the whole of the funds still in the hands of the emigration commissioners in England. Unless aid was afforded, those without means must shortly be exposed to want. Rations of food were being distributed, nominally to be paid for out of the deposit money, and he ordered the issue to be continued to all who needed them until he could receive instructions from England. He proposed to the secretary of state that the settlers should be relieved from the charge of inland transport, which should be borne by the colonial revenue; and to this Bathurst consented. In December Donkin was authorised to excuse the repayment of the sums due on that account. The visit mattered because the deposit of 10 pounds per male adult, paid in England, was not enough to move nearly 3000 people from the beach to untilled locations and then feed them until a harvest. [3] [4]
The small parties were chiefly located along the Kowie, and in the centre of their grounds Donkin selected a site for a village, which he caused to be laid out in building allotments. He named it Bathurst in honour of the secretary of state, and announced that a magistrate would shortly be stationed there. This was early in May. On the 23rd of that month he appointed Captain Charles Trappes of the 72nd to take up his residence — a marquee — at Bathurst and to act in a somewhat indefinite manner as magistrate. The chief object was peace and order among people who were considered to require advice rather than the enforcement of law. He was to do all he could, without being enabled to inflict penalties, to enforce fulfilment of contracts between masters and servants, and generally to manage the settlement. On the 15th of September it was found necessary to augment his power and create him a provisional magistrate. All the locations enclosed by a line from the Fish at Mahony’s location to Jager’s Drift on the Bushman’s and the sea were defined as within his jurisdiction. Special heemraden were appointed from among the settlers themselves: Captain D. Campbell and Major George Pigot for Grahamstown, and Thomas Phillips for Bathurst. Donkin meant Bathurst to be not only the settlers’ own village but the seat that would outrank Grahamstown. [3] [4]
On the hill above the landing-place at Algoa Bay the acting governor erected a monument to the memory of his deceased wife. A notice in the Gazette, dated the 23rd of June, made known that the rising town upon the shore would bear her name, and henceforth be called Port Elizabeth. Without that naming the place would, from the military station, have been called Port Frederick. A private letter from J. H. Lange of Uitenhage, dated the 14th of June, already spoke of Algoa as so named, and of erven given to the new colonists on condition that they be built upon immediately. The pyramid on the high hill, looking over the site of the town, was to the memory of one of the most perfect of human beings, who had given her name to the town below: Elizabeth Frances, Lady Donkin, eldest daughter of Dr George Markham, Dean of York, died at Meerut in Upper Hindoostan of a fever after seven days’ illness on the 21st of August 1818, aged not quite 28 years. She left an infant son in his seventh month, and a husband whose heart was still wrung. He erected the pyramid in August of this year. On the 25th of June Donkin reached Capetown again. [3] [4]
Upon the withdrawal of the large party of Highland Scotch under Captain Grant, the emigration commissioners selected other families in different parts of the kingdom, in number sufficient to absorb the balance of the parliamentary grant for passages. These people embarked in 7 transports, of which 4 arrived toward the close of 1820. Two more were still on the water when the year closed. One was lost by fire at sea. All the families who reached South Africa in these vessels were meant for Albany. At the same time a few came without government aid, on the assurance that they would receive larger grants of land if they paid for their passages. Altogether, nearly 5000 individuals of British birth settled in the colony between March 1820 and May 1821. [3]
Locations, Passes, and Parties — 1820
The locations first assigned formed a rough line of frontier, from the mouth of the Fish to Grahamstown. Commencing from the Fish: Bailie’s, called Cuylerville in honour of Cuyler, then Mouncey’s, Wainwright’s, Hayhurst’s, Bradshaw’s, Phillips’, Greathead’s, Erith’s, Dixon’s, Dalgairn’s, Pigot’s, Stanley’s, Howard’s, Morgan’s, Carlisle’s, and Bishop Burnett’s hired ground, after which Grahamstown was reached. In front of that first line, in the positions of greatest danger, were Scott’s, Rowles’s, and Mandy’s on the lower Kap, and Smith’s, Turvey’s, and Mahony’s further north. The Clay Pits, the most easterly location, was the ground most likely to be visited for the red clay prized for ornament, and was in fact the first to be attacked in later years. The whole of that line was in occupation by the 16th of May. The country between the Kleinmonde and the Kowie was then more or less filled up, and finally, as still more land was required — especially on the arrival of certain parties from Saldanha Bay — lands along the Kareiga and Bushman’s and their tributaries were utilised. Considering the few officials — Cuyler, Captain Henry Somerset as acting landdrost of Grahamstown, and Knobel — and the wide country, mistakes were made. In some cases a party had to be moved from a place where habitations and gardens had already been begun. That happened to the large party under Hezekiah Sephton, located first and then removed to the position later called Salem. [4]
As soon as Sephton’s party was settled at Salem, the reverend William Shaw, who had come in the Aurora, commenced the organisation of the religious affairs of the country. He might have confined himself to the hills of Salem; he included the whole of the settlers in his circuit. No chaplain had yet been appointed to the military establishment in Grahamstown, though on the 30th of June the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel voted 3500 pounds toward a church in that village. Two Church of England clergymen came with the settlers: McCleland with the Irish at Clanwilliam, and the reverend William Boardman with Willson’s. Boardman became head of that party when its leader abandoned it. In June John Brownlee, appointed in December 1819 as government missionary with Gaika, occupied the post and formed a station in the upper part of the Tyumie valley — the strip Gaika had asked to keep when the Keiskama line was declared in October 1819. [3] [4]
Disunion showed at once. On the 29th of April Cuyler, reporting his procedure in accompanying and locating Bailie’s party, said he observed the greatest dissatisfaction and want of unity, few confiding in Bailie, many wishing to form separate settlements, several wishing not to remain on the lands assigned. These people were almost to a man Londoners, and several first-rate tradesmen; the location was not, to first appearance, so inviting as many spots they had passed. If permitted, many would remove to one or other of the drostdies to set up in their trades. Donkin caused a circular to be distributed among Bailie’s people: no permission would be given to any individual to separate from the party until satisfactory proof could be adduced that such separation did not interfere with the general design of His Majesty’s Government in providing a gratuitous passage. The deposit stood to Bailie’s credit; the grant would be made out in his name. Continuance of disunion, the circular said, must be attended with inevitable distress. [4]
Thomas Willson’s party, in 69 waggons, left Algoa Bay for lands about 5 miles from Bathurst. They arrived in the afternoon. The next morning Willson gave some vague instructions to Boardman and returned to Algoa Bay, and never again visited the location. As the party was without a head, and therefore according to the regulations incapable of communicating with the government or of drawing rations, Trappes and Cuyler brought pressure to bear; he would not resume the duty. He expressed fear for his life should he return, and applied for 1000 acres for himself; Donkin refused. Stores issued at the bay, which Willson had treated as equivalent of extra money collected in England, had been debited against the ordinary deposit; the people demanded a refund; he refused. Captain Evatt, made acquainted with the state of affairs, took it upon himself to refuse to supply, without prompt payment, any provisions to Willson and his family. Complaints poured in upon Trappes from the moment he took up his marquee. On the 25th of May the party under Thomas Rowles complained that he had refused to be answerable for any more rations. Masters could not pay indentured servants; servants even when well treated deserted or refused to work. [4]
The difficulties of retaining the settlers on Zuurveld soil put them, as far as freedom of movement was concerned, on the same footing as the Khoikhoi. They were not permitted to leave the location without a written pass from the head of the party, and in the event of temporary absence from the district a pass signed by Trappes or the landdrost of Grahamstown. A circular issued from Grahamstown on the 24th of May directed that any individual proceeding to Grahamstown, if not a head of a party, must produce permission to quit the party before the magistrate, who would exercise his discretion as to allowing him to remain. A head of a party needed no pass to quit the location, but he too must obtain a town pass. Applications for permission permanently to quit a party had to be signed by the head, sent to the provisional magistrate, and forwarded to the Colonial Office. First cottages were of wattle and daub, two rooms of about 10 feet by 12; doors closed by a mat or rug; windows a piece of calico nailed over the opening. Some dug holes and burrowed, or filled interstices between rocks. At Algoa Bay, soon after their arrival, the settlers were prohibited from assembling in public meeting to discuss politics or the administration of the colony. When they again requested to be allowed to hold their meeting, they were threatened with prosecution for illegal assembly. [4] [7]
Makana Drowned — 9 August 1820
Makana had surrendered to Landdrost Stockenstrom on the 15th of August 1819, stating that he did so to procure peace for his people, who were starving. He was the man who had led the largest of the three columns against the Grahamstown barracks on the 22nd of April 1819. He was sent a prisoner to Robben Island, where political offenders as well as persons convicted of crime were then kept in detention. Among such persons as did not like to pronounce his name he was called Nxele, the left-handed one; in intercourse with colonists they used the Dutch equivalent Linksch, which the English officials on the frontier corrupted into Lynx, and by that name he stood in the colonial records. On the 29th of September 1819 Cuyler had reported that the chief Lynx had been safely put on His Majesty’s sloop Nautilus to be conveyed to Capetown. He remained among the convicts on the island less than a year. The island mattered because, with Ndlambe a fugitive and the Keiskama line declared, the colony held the prophet who had organised the April attack, and his people still waited for him. [3] [4] [7]
There was a whaling establishment belonging to Mr Murray on the island. During the night of the 9th of August Makana, at the head of 30 prisoners, overpowered the guard, seized the whale-boats, and tried to get to the mainland. His companions succeeded in reaching the shore; he was drowned in the surf. As soon as possible they were followed by a commando under field-cornet Coenraad van Eyssen, but they were found to have divided into several parties, only one of which was overtaken. That band was composed of desperate characters who refused to surrender; 3 of them were captured and some others were shot. The three — among whom was a European named John Smith — were hanged for the offence, and their heads were afterwards fixed on stakes and exposed on Robben Island. Most of the other fugitives were subsequently apprehended and received various kinds of punishment. The boats were held to have offered too great a temptation to the convicts. After Somerset’s return the whaling establishment was broken up; Murray was required to remove to the mainland, and in December 1822 was awarded 1160 pounds as compensation for his buildings. [3] [4]
The generation to which he belonged passed away before his countrymen would acknowledge that he was dead, for many of them firmly believed that he was immortal. Through the three succeeding wars they looked confidently for his appearance to lead them to victory. It was only in 1873 that his mats and ornaments, carefully preserved during all that period, were buried, and every expectation of his returning to the Xhosa country was lost. The long deferred and finally abandoned hope of his reappearance has given rise to a proverb: kukuza kuka Nxele — the coming of Nxele — you are looking for something you will never see. Though he had four wives, he left one son, Umjusa, and four daughters. What hung on the night of the 9th was not only a drowned prisoner. The largest column-leader of April 1819 was gone, and his people were still waiting for a return that would not come. [3]
Albany, Rust, and the Abeona — October–December 1820
On the 13th of October Donkin issued a proclamation by which the portion of the district of Uitenhage east of the Bushman’s river, together with the tract of land between the Fish and Keiskama rivers, was created a separate district called Albany. By Cradock’s proclamation of the 7th of January 1814 Albany had been somewhat indefinitely described as that part of Uitenhage formerly called the Zuurveld. Donkin now limited Uitenhage on the east by the Bosjesman’s river, and declared that the country to the eastward thereof, with the newly acquired territory between the Great Fish and the Keiskamma, including the field-cornetcies of Upper and Under Bosjesman’s River, of Bruintjes Hooghte, and of Albany Proper, should form the province of Albany, whose chief place and seat of magistracy should be the town of Bathurst. Lieutenant-Colonel John Graham was named landdrost and directed to establish his office in the village of Bathurst. Donkin visioned great things for that village: not only the chief administrative centre for the country occupied by the settlers, but precedence of Grahamstown. The cost of the eastern public buildings was estimated at 12000 rixdollars. The proclamation mattered because it put the new British locations under their own magistrate, at the village Donkin had named for the secretary of state, and folded the vacant Fish–Keiskama tract into the same district — still, in Somerset’s design, to be patrolled rather than farmed. [3] [4]
In September the value of the various stores supplied to the settlers became equal to the balance of the deposit money then in the hands of the government. The large sum due for waggon hire was still unpaid; they were in debt to the colonial government. Trappes was instructed to apprise each head of a party that he would be debited with what might be required until the next harvest was reaped, and that his lands and property would be mortgaged for the amount. Before the close of the year it was found necessary to relax the pass regulations. The large number of applications for permission to work in the towns from those pursuing ornamental trades made it clear that it was useless to detain them longer upon the locations. On the 20th of December Donkin authorised Trappes to issue, with due caution, permanent colonial passes to those who would thus be more beneficially employed, on production of a certificate that they were not indebted to the head of the party or to the government for rations or stores. On the 21st of December a circular told heads of parties that their accounts with the government had been closed, and that from about that date, so it was hoped, they would provide for themselves. The rust made a total withdrawal impossible. Only those actually on the locations and responsible to a head of a party were to draw rations, at a soldier’s ration (value 7 pence) for a man, two-thirds for a woman, and one-half for a child, on the understanding that payment would be made when circumstances permitted. The amounts were to stand as mortgages on the buildings and lands which would become the settlers’ after 3 years’ residence. [4]
Unsatisfactory in character and industry as many individuals were, taken as a whole the settlers accomplished as much during the first few months as could well be expected. The extent of virgin soil broken was as great as the limited number of ploughs could contend with, and all the available seed corn had been sown. The crops appeared and gave, for a time, promise of abundant harvest. About November the fatal rust made its appearance throughout not only the Zuurveld but the whole of the colony. As the year progressed the disease grew worse, until at the time of reaping there was scarcely the quantity of seed which had been sown. Throughout South Africa the growing wheat was attacked by blight in 1820 and completely failed; but in the west there was abundance of grain left from the exceptionally good crop of 1819, and rations were still supplied to all the settlers that needed them. It had been intended at this time to stop the issue of rations and to close accounts; in order to avert the consequences of withdrawal, the issue was continued. With due precaution against abuse, each man was allowed a soldier’s ration, a woman two-thirds, a child one-half. The blight mattered because the locations had no stored grain of their own, and the west’s leftover 1819 crop was the only reason the commissariat could still feed them. [3] [4]
One of the seven later transports never reached the Cape. On Saturday the 25th of November, in latitude 4° 30′ N. and longitude 25° 30′ W., about fifteen minutes past noon, the Abeona, 328 tons, bound to the Cape of Good Hope with settlers, was found to be on fire in the lazaretto abaft, the receptacle of stores and provisions. Water handed to the first mate and seamen driven up from below proved useless; the fire took sails, oakum, and rope. Lieutenant Mudge ordered the quarter gigs cleared. From Lisbon, on the 28th of December, he reported the destruction of the transport to the commissioners of the navy. She had left the Clyde in September with the remainder of the Scotch party after Grant’s people stayed at home; only 2 out of 30 families on board ever reached South Africa. On the 11th of December Captain Trappes forwarded to Donkin representations on the Kowie, that the river might have a fair trial as a port for the settlement. The landing of the settlers had made Algoa Bay, not the Kowie, the place where the year had actually set people ashore. In Capetown, Donkin began the first lighthouse on the South African shores, at Green Point; it would not send a beam over the Atlantic until the 12th of April 1824. [3] [4]