Boer History1842 in South Africa: Smith, Congella, King’s Ride, and the Southampton
Prinsloo’s Letter of the 21st of February, the Brazilia of the 24th of March, and Smith from the Umgazi — February–April 1842
On the 2nd of December 1841 Sir George Thomas Napier had proclaimed that the Queen would not recognise the Natal emigrants as an independent people, and that he would send a detachment to Port Natal. Napier was governor of the Cape. The proclamation followed a despatch of the 21st of August 1841 from Lord John Russell, telling him to reoccupy the harbour without interfering with the farmers unless the troops or allied tribes were attacked. That is why 1842 opened with Captain Thomas Charlton Smith still on the Umgazi, waiting for a reinforcement before he could march on the port. [3] [4]
On the 15th of January the volksraad at Pietermaritzburg dealt with the blacks who had come back onto Natal farms after the Zulu wars. Those who had been in Natal before the emigrants arrived might remain if they were in a farmer’s employ. They were not to go further than 2 hours on horseback from the master’s house without a pass, on pain of arrest as a vagabond, and each was to wear a tin or wooden badge with his own name and number on one side and his master’s name on the other. The rule mattered because Napier’s proclamation had already named the volksraad’s plan to shift the rest of those people onto the ground between the Umtamvuna and the Umzimvubu — land he said belonged to Faku — as an unjust proceeding that would bring war down on the Cape frontier. [4]
On the 21st of February 1842 a long letter went from Maritzburg to Napier, signed by Joachim Prinsloo as president and 18 of the members. It was not their object, they said, to defy the power of Great Britain, but they could not allow might to triumph over right without using every means they had. In God and in the justice of their cause they trusted. Their arrangements for removing the blacks were, they said, true philanthropy. They did not know that Faku had any claim to the land between the Umtamvuna and the Umzimvubu: he had told them it had belonged to Tshaka and then to Dingane, and he had recognised their right to it. Under the British government, which gave no protection except to uncivilised people, they could not exist in Natal. They were driven to choose either to move again and leave their possessions, or to take up arms; they left to his Excellency which of the two was preferable. They protested against the movement threatened in the proclamation, and declared that whatever the result they would be blameless before God, their own consciences, and the world. The letter mattered because it told the castle that the republic would fight rather than take a Queen’s garrison at the harbour. [3] [7]
While that letter was still on the road, a small vessel called the Brazilia reached Port Natal on the 24th of March 1842. George Gerhard Ohrig, of Klyn and Co. of Amsterdam, had failed to raise enough capital for a trading association with Natal, so the firm built the vessel on its own account and shipped an assortment of goods. She had as supercargo Johan Arnaud Smellekamp, full of enthusiasm for the emigrants, and Skipper Reus in command. Ohrig’s pamphlet The Emigrants at Port Natal had been so carefully kept from British consuls in the Netherlands that the Cape only obtained a copy with difficulty. The farmers read it as the voice of the Dutch government. That is why a trading schooner, arriving while minds were dejected at the prospect of English reoccupation, was taken for a promise of help from Holland. Smellekamp and Reus were met outside Maritzburg by young men who unyoked the oxen and drew the waggon themselves. All the bunting and red and blue calico in the place became flags, and the tricolour of the Netherlands waved over house tops and waggon tents. The volksraad welcomed the visitors as representatives of the fatherland. Strong men shed tears when bibles and books of devotion sent by Jacob Swart were given out. The 8 days at Maritzburg were public meetings, feasting, and religious services. [3] [7]
The volksraad gave Smellekamp funds and sent him back to Holland to negotiate a treaty and to procure clergymen and schoolmasters. He left Maritzburg on the 30th of April and was accompanied overland to Graaff-Reinet by the landdrost J. N. Boshof. From Graaff-Reinet he went on to Swellendam, where he was arrested under the obsolete proclamation of the 25th of February 1806 for travelling without a pass, and was forwarded as a prisoner to Capetown. He was kept 2 days in confinement. He would not reveal anything, and evidence against him was not to be had, so he was released and allowed to embark for Europe. Most of the Brazilia’s cargo did not suit the emigrants. Skipper Reus sold what he could and sailed for Batavia just before Smith reached Durban. [3]
To carry the December proclamation into effect, Captain Lonsdale of the 27th was instructed to march from the colonial frontier to reinforce Smith at the Umgazi with 108 men of his own regiment, and 17 engineers, Cape mounted riflemen, and artillerymen, and 2 field-pieces. Smith was then to leave a guard at the Umgazi camp and move on to Port Natal with 222 of the 27th, 17 artillerymen with 3 guns, 6 engineers, and 18 Cape mounted riflemen. His orders were short: pledge the government to nothing until her Majesty’s pleasure is known; do not interfere with the emigrants; treat them courteously, but call them constantly her Majesty’s subjects; protect all from attack, black and white, and see that peace is kept. While he waited for Lonsdale he opened communication with English residents at Durban, who promised assistance, and with several emigrants who said they were weary of strife and would welcome troops as relief from anarchy. The letters went by native runners supplied by Henry Ogle, living on the Umkomanzi, about 30 miles south of the port. [3] [4]
On the 1st of April 1842 the force destined for Natal left the camp on the Umgazi. It was 263 men of all ranks, with 1 howitzer and 2 light field-pieces, and a long waggon train of which 60 of the drivers were Englishmen and were armed. The route was reckoned at 260 miles. There was no road, and heavy rains had swollen the rivers until they were nearly impassable. The march mattered because Napier’s proclamation was now a column on the ground, not a paper at the castle, and because Pretorius still had time to gather at Congella before it arrived. [3] [7]
The Camp at the Berea, Congella, and the Night of the 23rd of May — May 1842
On the 33rd day of the march, as the column drew near Durban, two farmers handed Smith a written protest from the volksraad against the troops entering Natal. He declined to receive it. On the 4th of May the troops reached their destination and encamped on a plain at the base of the Berea, about half a mile from the few scattered buildings that then made the town of Durban. Not a single casualty had occurred on the road. While the camp was being formed the protest was tendered again, and rejected again. The same thing happened on the 5th. This time the deputation told Smith by word of mouth that the republic was in treaty with Holland and under that power’s protection. The assertion matched what the emigrants had talked themselves into believing after the Brazilia. Smith treated it with derision. [3]
Messengers now went in haste from Andries Wilhelmus Jacobus Pretorius to Potchefstroom and Winburg to ask for aid. Pretorius was commandant-general of the Natal emigrants, the man who had held the Blood river on the 16th of December 1838. Chief-Commandant Andries Hendrik Potgieter refused to take part in resistance to the English troops, but Commandant Mocke called out his burghers and prepared to go down to Natal. The burghers of Pietermaritzburg and Weenen were in the meantime gathering at Congella. On the 9th of May Smith marched toward Congella with 100 soldiers to call on the farmers to disperse. Pretorius met him on the way. After a short parley Smith went back to camp. He said afterwards that he returned because Pretorius agreed to withdraw his men from Congella. Pretorius said he had promised nothing more than to remain quiet until the volksraad met, unless he was molested. On the 11th a party of armed farmers paraded in sight of the English forces, in Smith’s opinion to provoke an attack. The disagreement mattered because each side now had a different story of what “quiet” meant, and because Mocke was still on the road from beyond the mountains. [3] [7]
On the 17th Smith wrote to Pretorius. The letter came back unopened, on the ground that it was not addressed with the title of commandant-general. The same day the volksraad met at Congella and instructed Pretorius to write demanding that Smith leave the port before noon on the 19th and march back beyond the republic’s boundaries. Smith declined to receive that letter. On the 20th two messengers from Pretorius came to the English camp and verbally demanded that the troops leave at once. Smith’s reply was short: “I shall not go, I shall stay.” During this time two vessels had crossed the bar. One was a brig named the Pilot, with provisions and munitions of war from Capetown. Her cargo was landed at the Point, and a guard of 23 men under a sergeant was stationed there to protect it. The other was a schooner named the Mazeppa, from Algoa Bay with merchandise for the traders and some private property of the military officers. The Point guard mattered because the camp under the Berea could not hold the harbour stores without it, and because an eighteen-pounder sat there with the Pilot’s cargo. [3] [4]
On the 23rd of May the farmers took possession of a large number of transport cattle. Whether they meant to keep them is doubtful: one side said armed men seized the oxen; the other that the oxen had mixed with the farmers’ cattle on the grazing ground and would have been sent back once they could be separated. Both parties were ready for a fight. That night at eleven o’clock Smith left his camp at the head of 109 men of the 27th, 18 of the royal artillery, 8 sappers, and 2 Cape mounted riflemen, to attack the farmers at Congella, who were known from an intercepted letter to be 264 strong. A large gun was placed in a boat, with orders to convey it to a spot where the troops would receive it. The attack was badly planned. It was clear moonlight, yet surprise was hoped for. The boat could reach its destination only at high water; the troops, by the route taken, only when the tide was out. The distance was about 3 miles, along a patch of dense thicket. [3] [4] [7]
The troops were marching fully exposed past the thicket, with two field-pieces drawn by bullocks, when a sharp fire opened on them. They returned the volley, but did no damage to the farmers, who were well protected and thoroughly concealed. Another discharge wounded some of the oxen, which broke from the yokes and rushed about, adding to the confusion. There was nothing for it but retreat. The farmers found 16 killed and 31 wounded on the ground next day; when the roll was called, 50 of the 138 men of the expedition were not there to answer. The 3 missing were supposed in the confusion to have got into deep water and drowned. The two guns, the oxen, and everything that could be left behind fell to the farmers. Smith was followed closely to his camp, where he prepared for defence. There was no attempt to storm the position, but until dawn a desultory fire was kept up, by which one farmer — Abraham Greyling — was killed. At sunrise the farmers went back to their quarters. The wounded soldiers were carefully tended, and as there was no medical man at Congella they were all sent to the English camp in the course of the day. The dead were sent in for burial by their comrades. The night mattered because a column that had come 260 miles without a casualty had now lost its guns at the thicket, and because the port still had to be held from a camp that could be invested at dawn. [3] [7]
King’s Ride, the Point, and the Siege of Twenty-six Days — May–June 1842
Richard King, an old resident at Durban, undertook to ride overland to Grahamstown with news of the disaster. George Christopher Cato, who since 1839 had been agent at Natal for the mercantile house of John Owen Smith of Port Elizabeth, ferried him across the inlet so as to avoid the farmers’ quarters. King, though fired at, got safely away. The ride mattered because the nearest British authority who could put a schooner to sea was at Grahamstown, some 9 days off by the road King took, and because Smith’s camp could not wait long once the Point stores were gone. The 25th passed without any event of importance. The troops strengthened the camp, expecting an attack every hour, but no enemy appeared. [3] [7]
Just before daylight on the morning of the 26th about 100 farmers presented themselves at the Point and called on the sergeant in command of the guard to surrender. He refused. They opened fire, killing 2 soldiers and an old English resident named Charles Adams, and wounding 2 soldiers. The sergeant then surrendered, and an eighteen-pounder, with all the stores and ammunition brought by the Pilot, fell to the farmers. The Pilot and the Mazeppa were seized at once, but except for the masters no one was removed from the vessels. The volksraad declared confiscated the property of Smith and of such other persons as were in arms against the republic, and a party under Michiel van Breda and Servaas van Breda went on board the Mazeppa and removed it. Those two names would later be excepted from Cloete’s amnesty, because the goods taken off the schooner were treated as private plunder of people in arms. [3] [7]
Pretorius then proposed that the troops leave in the Pilot and the Mazeppa. Smith agreed to a truce until the 31st, under pretence of considering the matter. His real object was to gain time to strengthen his defences and to increase his provisions by salting down cattle which William Cowie and some other residents of Durban were conveying to the camp by night. The negotiations for removal came to nothing. At six o’clock on the morning of the 31st of May the camp was invested and fire opened on it from the farmers’ batteries, on which stood the eighteen-pounder taken at the Point and the two six-pounders taken on the night of the 23rd. Sixteen of the soldiers captured at the Point, together with 10 English residents of Durban who had assisted the troops — G. C. Cato, F. Armstrong, S. Beningfield, J. Douglas, J. Hogg, H. Ogle, H. Parkins, D. Toohey, F. M‘Cabe, and B. Schwikkard — were sent as prisoners to Maritzburg. [3]
On the 1st of June the reverend Mr. Archbell, then Wesleyan missionary at Durban, was asked by Pretorius to go to the camp with a flag of truce and propose that the women and children be removed for safety to the Mazeppa. The offer was gladly accepted, and 28 people in all, including the wives and children of several of the prisoners at Maritzburg, took refuge on board. Smith then determined to defend himself to the last. He had deep trenches dug, in which the soldiers could remain in security, and he increased his stock of provisions by slaughtering his horses and drying their flesh. The men were put on short allowance, which as the siege advanced became less and less, until they had nothing more than a few ounces of biscuit dust and dried horseflesh daily. There was no want of water, which came from wells sunk within the camp. The arrival of Commandant Mocke with a large contingent raised the force under Pretorius to 600 men. They fortified the entrance to the inner harbour and pressed the siege. Their cannon balls having become exhausted, they manufactured others by casting leaden ones over links cut from a chain cable. So well were the soldiers protected that the fire against them was almost harmless: 8 men killed and 8 wounded on the British side during the 26 days of the siege, though 651 cannon shot were fired at the camp. On the other side 4 men were killed, and 8 or 10 were wounded. [3] [4]
On the 10th of June the crew of the Mazeppa slipped the cable and got to sea, hoping to meet a British ship-of-war from which relief could be obtained. There was very little food and no ballast on board. The schooner had to run the gauntlet at the Point, sailing slowly, with a light breeze, at a distance of only 30 yards from 80 farmers armed with muskets and a four-pounder. Her sails and rigging were well cut up, but no one on board was hurt. She ran northward as far as Delagoa Bay, and then, having met with no assistance, put about and found the frigate Southampton at the outer anchorage of Natal. Famine was beginning to tell on the soldiers, and they could have held out only a very short time longer, when in the evening of the 24th of June rockets flashing over the outer anchorage announced that relief was at hand. All that night and the next day the famished soldiers watched and waited in vain. As night fell on the 25th rockets were again seen, and soon after dark the booming of heavy guns far out at sea was heard. [3] [4]
The Southampton, Cloete’s Landing of the 26th of June, and the 15th of July — June–July 1842
When King reached Grahamstown — 9 days on the road — 100 rank and file of the 27th, under Captain Durnford, were at once sent by Colonel Hare to Port Elizabeth, and were there embarked in a coasting schooner named the Conch, chartered as a transport. Hare was lieutenant-governor of the eastern districts: the man who could move a company without waiting for Capetown. Captain Bell, the master of this vessel, had been to Natal before and knew the harbour. On the 11th of June the Conch sailed from Algoa Bay. She arrived at the outer anchorage of Natal on the 24th, and sent up the rockets that evening which were seen from the camp. As soon as the news reached Capetown, a wing of the 25th regiment, then under orders for India, was embarked in the frigate Southampton. Lieutenant-Colonel Abraham Josias Cloete, deputy-quartermaster-general of the forces in South Africa and a member of one of the oldest European families in the country, was directed to take command. The Southampton sailed from Simon’s Bay on the 14th of June. She arrived off Natal during the night of the 25th, and it was the booming of her guns in answer to the rockets from the Conch which was heard in the camp. A few additional troops and some stores were sent from Table Bay on the 15th of June in a chartered brig named the Maid of Mona, but she did not reach Natal in time to be of any service. [3] [4] [7]
On Sunday the 26th of June 1842 a light breeze was blowing from the south-east, of which Cloete determined to take advantage. The Bluff at the entrance to the inner harbour was occupied by 350 farmers, who could pour musket balls onto the deck of any vessel attempting to pass. The Southampton was therefore brought as close to the bar as was considered prudent, and from that position she opened her broadside and dispersed all who were within reach of her guns. To the 100 men already on board the Conch 35 were added, and 85 were embarked in boats and taken in tow. Cloete himself commanded the party, and Captain Hill of the royal navy was in charge of the boats. A line was run along the schooner a couple of feet above her bulwarks and covered with the soldiers’ blankets, to prevent the men on deck from being aimed at. All sail was then set, and at three o’clock in the afternoon, with the wind and tide in her favour, the Conch crossed the bar, passing under the farmers’ fire with the loss of 3 soldiers killed and 3 soldiers and 2 sailors wounded. The troops were landed without further resistance, for the farmers were already retreating. At four o’clock Cloete met Smith, and the camp was relieved. The landing mattered because a siege of 26 days ended in an hour once a frigate’s guns could reach the Bluff, and because Pretorius’s force began to melt the same afternoon. [3] [4]
Commandant Mocke and the burghers from beyond the mountains now abandoned the cause and went home. The farmers of Natal also deserted in such numbers that Pretorius was soon left without power of resistance. He formed a camp a few miles inland and waited. Cloete, as senior in rank, assumed command of all the troops in Natal. Another difficulty then arose. The Conch had hardly any provisions on board, the Maid of Mona had not yet arrived, and a sudden gale compelled the Southampton to put to sea before anything of consequence could be landed. The fresh troops were in danger of hunger as much as those they had relieved. Some hundreds of blacks were hovering about the neighbourhood. Panda, the vassal of the emigrants, refused to assist either party while they were fighting for the upper hand: whichever won must be his master. When Smith had been in almost desperate circumstances he had managed to communicate with the Zulu chief and had asked in vain for aid. As soon as the troops proved the strongest, Panda sent messengers to Cloete to say that he was about to march against the farmers, and it was only when he was told he must not that he abandoned the project. In his necessity Cloete called on the blacks near Durban to bring him all the horses and cattle they could get, and they, reading the order as a general licence to plunder, began to ravage the nearest farms. Three emigrants, named Dirk van Rooyen, Theunis Oosthuizen, and Cornelis van Schalkwyk, were murdered in cold blood. Pretorius sent a letter of remonstrance. Cloete replied that he would endeavour to prevent excesses, but that he could not withdraw the order. “You,” he wrote, “have caused this state of things by rebelling, and you must bear the consequences.” [3] [7]
Cloete then called on the farmers to acknowledge that they were the Queen’s subjects and to break up their military organisation. Pretorius replied by letter on the 4th of July that it was impossible to accede to conditions which required as a first step a declaration of submission to the Queen’s authority. He said the emigrants had already made over the country to the king of the Netherlands, and had called upon that power to protect them, so they had every reason to expect that their cause would be supported in Europe. The farmers now retired to Maritzburg, where a meeting of the volksraad — on the first Monday of July — was so stormy, and the language of party recrimination so violent, that the best men lost all hope of being able to defend the country. Pretorius, Boshof, Landman, and others thereupon invited Cloete to visit Maritzburg to talk matters over, and guaranteed perfect safety and full freedom in going and returning. The colonel accepted, and on the 14th of July, accompanied by Major D’Urban and Lieutenants Napier, Maclean, and Fuller, he entered the emigrant capital. One little group after another had gone to their farms, declaring they would take no part in any arrangement whatever. Boshof, who was then elected president, Pretorius, and Landman used all their influence to induce the farmers to come to terms, but the argument that had most effect was that by doing so time would be gained for Holland to interfere on their behalf. [3] [7]
On the 15th of July half the members of the volksraad consented to three conditions: the immediate release of all prisoners, whether soldiers or civilians; the giving up of all cannon, those taken from the troops as well as others, with the ammunition and stores belonging to them; and the restitution of all public and private property that had been seized and was then in their possession. These conditions were signed by Boshof and 11 other members, and with a declaration of their submission to the authority of the Queen comprised all that they engaged to do. On the other side Cloete agreed to a general amnesty, excepting only Joachim Prinsloo, late president, Jacobus Johannes Burger, late secretary of the volksraad, and Michiel and Servaas van Breda, who had removed the goods from the Mazeppa; to respect all private property; to permit the farmers to return to their homes with their guns and horses, and to protect them against the blacks; not to interfere with the existing administration or civil institutions until the pleasure of the Queen should be made known, except in the district bounded on the east by the Umgeni, on the west by the Umlazi, and on the north by a line along the crest of the Berea hills and the ridges between those rivers, which district was to be under the exclusive control of the commander of the troops; to leave all revenue at the disposal of the volksraad, except the port and customs dues, which were to belong to the crown; and not to disturb the blacks on any lands then occupied by them. The exception of four names mattered because those four continued to live as publicly as before, and because a later proclamation would put money on their heads without anyone taking it. [3] [4] [7]
Cloete then returned to Capetown with four companies of the 25th, to be in readiness to embark for India. An old tender named the Fawn, under Lieutenant Joseph Nourse, was sent to Natal with a strong armed crew and anchored in the inner harbour, where she served as a floating fort. Upon her arrival the remaining company of the 25th was withdrawn, and the late commanding officer, now entitled Major Smith, was left with a garrison of 275 men of the 27th, 12 Cape mounted riflemen, 24 artillerymen, and 20 engineers. These arrangements seemed incapable of being misunderstood; yet the great majority of the emigrants afterwards maintained that they implied nothing more than a truce of six months. The volksraad continued its functions, and party feeling ran as high as ever. Pretorius resigned his office, and Gerrit Rudolph was appointed commandant-general in his stead, as if the country were perfectly independent. There were in reality two governments in Natal: the volksraad still sat, and Smith’s camp still held the port. On the 11th of August Napier issued a proclamation offering a reward of £250 for the apprehension of each of the four persons excepted from the amnesty — £1,000 in all — but they continued to live as publicly as before, and no one thought of disturbing them. Smith was instructed to take only a passive part against them unless they were found actually within the military area. [3] [4] [7]
Stanley’s 10th of April, Napier’s 25th of July, and the Despatch of the 13th of December — April–December 1842
While these events were taking place, important despatches concerning Natal were passing between Napier and Lord Stanley. Stanley had succeeded Russell at the Colonial Office in September 1841. On the 6th of December 1841 the governor had written that he was resuming military occupation of the port, and recommending that a colony should be established there. Stanley replied on the 10th of April 1842 that many considerations concurred to dissuade the imperial government from increasing its responsibilities in South Africa. They were derived from a general survey of the extent of the British possessions in different parts of the world, from the magnitude of the naval and military forces required for their defence, and from the demands to which the national revenue was already subject. He believed that a colony at Natal would be attended with little prospect of advantage, that for many years it would be a serious charge upon the revenues of the parent state, that it would tend to disperse the population and impair the resources of the Cape Colony, and that it would bring Great Britain into new and hazardous relations with aboriginal tribes. The despatch mattered because it reached the Cape after Smith was already on the march, and because it told Napier to take the troops away just as Congella was about to make that order impossible to obey without abandoning a camp under siege. [3]
The governor was instructed to inform the emigrants that their pretensions to be regarded as an independent state or community could not be admitted; that the allegiance they owed to the British crown was an obligation they could not disclaim or violate with impunity; that within the limits of her Majesty’s dominions they would receive effective protection of their persons and property; and that by removing beyond the boundaries they forfeited their claim to protection, though they did not absolve themselves from responsibility to the Queen for their conduct. He was directed further to offer an amnesty and pardon to all who would return to the Cape Colony within a specified time, and to render every assistance in his power to facilitate their doing so. Those who persisted in residing in the territories they had taken were to be told that her Majesty’s government would adopt every practicable method of preventing commercial intercourse between them and the people of the Cape Colony; that if they molested the tribes with which her Majesty was in alliance, military aid would be afforded to those tribes; and that any of the emigrants found in arms against the forces of their sovereign, whether beyond or within the precincts of the colony, would be regarded as rebels. Finally the governor was instructed to desire the admiral on the station to intercept all supplies sent by sea to Natal, and immediately to withdraw the military detachment from the port. [3]
On the 25th of July Napier wrote, acknowledging the receipt of this despatch, and stating that he took upon himself the responsibility of not carrying the instructions into effect until he should have a reply to what he was then communicating. He had come to South Africa, he said, determined to uphold the policy of the secretary of state, by refusing on every occasion to listen to schemes which contemplated an enlargement of the territorial limits of the Cape Colony; but he had changed that opinion. He reviewed the events that had led to the existing condition of affairs, and stated that he could not protect the blacks or control the inland trade as Stanley desired without a much greater force than he had at his disposal. The occupation of Port Natal was necessary as a check upon unrestricted commerce. The facility with which munitions of war could be smuggled through that port, if it were not in English hands, was very great. In conclusion, he referred to the disastrous consequences to friendly whites and blacks of the withdrawal of the troops, and maintained that keeping possession and colonising the country from the Tugela to the Umzimkulu was the best course under the circumstances. The letter mattered because Cloete’s conditions of the 15th would have been waste paper if the troops had then been pulled out, and because Stanley had to choose between his April economy and a governor who now asked for a colony. [3]
On the 12th of October Stanley replied that he considered the governor justified in not withdrawing the troops from Natal. He approved of the provisional measures taken, and would bring the question before his colleagues. On the 13th of December he wrote again, instructing the governor to send a commissioner to Natal to investigate matters there and report upon them. He was to inform the inhabitants that the Queen approved of the amnesty, that they were taken under her protection, and that they would be allowed to retain all lands actually occupied for 12 months previous to the commissioner’s arrival. The revenue from land and customs would be vested in the Queen and applied exclusively to the maintenance of the civil government. Her Majesty was anxious to place the institutions of the country upon such a footing as might be most acceptable to the people, consistent with her authority, and the commissioner was therefore to invite an expression of opinion. In legislation, however, the Queen reserved the most entire freedom of action. The Home Government, having realised the impossibility of inducing the expatriated people to return to the Colony, approved the course Cloete had pursued, including the general amnesty. “Notwithstanding all the faults of which the emigrants have been guilty,” Stanley wrote, “I cannot be insensible to their good qualities or the hardships which they have undergone.” The despatch of the 13th did not reach Capetown until 1843. What it settled in this year was that Natal would not be evacuated, and that a commissioner, not a recall, would be the next move from Downing Street. [3] [4]
Tyali’s Death, the Sabina, the Abercrombie Robinson, and the Waterloo — May–August 1842
On the 1st of May 1842 the chief Tyali died of a chest complaint at his kraal in the Tyumie valley. Tyali was a Gaika captain, brother of Maqoma, and for years one of the more turbulent heads on the eastern frontier. As his sons Fini and Oba were mere lads, his brother Koko was appointed regent of the clan. Koko had a fair amount of ability and was guided by the old councillors, so the condition of this branch of the Gaikas underwent very little change upon the death of its head. Tyali had long been ill, but the people would not believe that a man of his rank had died a natural death, and a witchfinder was employed to smell out those who had killed him. This man pointed to Sutu, great widow of Gaika, as the guilty person, and for some hours she was in danger of being maltreated. The diplomatic agent Stretch and the missionaries of the Glasgow society, learning what was taking place, hastened to the dead chief’s kraal, and as the old councillors were not unwilling to be guided, Sutu was spared. Three companies of the first battalion of the 91st were sent to the Cape from St. Helena, and were followed by the second battalion of the same regiment from England. Upon its arrival, in August, the 25th was sent to India. The 91st mattered in this year because a battalion of it was still on a transport in Table Bay when the August gale came in, and because the 25th that had landed with Cloete at Natal could then go on to its original destination. [3]
The year was more disastrous to shipping than any since the British occupation of the colony. At four o’clock in the morning of the 7th of August the Spanish ship Sabina, of 500 tons burden, bound from Manila to Cadiz, struck on Cape Recife and quickly went to pieces. The ship was leaky, and her master was trying to reach Algoa Bay, but at the moment of the disaster believed himself to be several miles from land. 45 men were saved; 20 were drowned or crushed to death in the wreckage. On Saturday the 27th of August a gale from the northwest set into Table Bay. During the night it increased in violence, and just before dawn on Sunday the transport Abercrombie Robinson parted her cables. She was a strong well-built ship, of 1,415 tons burden, and had only arrived from Dublin Bay with a battalion of the 91st. The troops were still on board, as it was intended that the transport should proceed with them to Algoa Bay. The ship struck near the mouth of Salt River and filled with water at once, but she held together, and the discipline of the soldiers and sailors was so perfect that there was not the slightest confusion. To this it was owing that not a single life was lost, for in the course of the morning every one got to land in safety. [3]
At eleven o’clock on Sunday morning the convict ship Waterloo parted. She had put into Table Bay for refreshments on the 24th, and was bound to Van Diemen’s Land. The Waterloo struck close to the wreck of the Abercrombie Robinson, but being old and rotten, fell into fragments in less than half an hour. A few persons were got ashore in boats, but there was not time to save many. When the ship broke up, all on board were precipitated into the heavy surf, amidst fragments of wreckage. Altogether 90 persons got to land alive, some very sorely bruised. 4 women, 13 children, and 15 men belonging to the guard of the 99th which was on board, 14 of the crew, and 143 convicts lost their lives. In this gale some other vessels drifted, and were damaged by coming into collision, but only the two here mentioned were wrecked. On the 9th of September another gale from the northwest set into Table Bay, when the British barque John Bagshaw, the American barque Fairfield, the British brigs Reform and Henry Hoyle, and the coasting schooner Ghika were driven on shore. No lives were lost on that day. [3]
The Bree-street jetty, which had cost £7,479, had been opened for use on the 1st of January. An association called the commercial wharf company was now formed for the purpose of landing and shipping merchandise, which was still conveyed in boats to and from vessels at anchor. On the 11th of March an order in council was issued, raising the duties on all articles not specially enumerated, so as to allow of the abolition of various vexatious and unpopular taxes. On the 8th of July the taxes on grain and brandy were done away with. Great efforts to improve Port Frances were still made by William Cock. He got out a steamer of 140 tons and 40 horse power, named the Sir John St. Aubyn, to ply between Port Frances and Table Bay and also to tow sailing vessels in and out of the Kowie. She arrived from England on the 2nd of July. After the wreck of the Hope the company got out a steamer of 405 tons, named the Phoenix, which arrived in Table Bay on the 19th of December. This vessel was regarded as a superb specimen of naval architecture, and when she made the passage from Algoa Bay to Table Bay in 47 hours without hoisting a sail, it was considered almost marvellous. The steamers mattered because Table Bay still had no breakwater, and because the gales of August and September had just shown what an open anchorage cost. [3]
Moshesh’s 30th of May, the Grahamstown Library, and the Bank of the 31st of December — 1842
North of the Orange, Moshesh had determined to be on the side that was safest. He was the paramount chief of the Basuto, sitting at Thaba Bosigo with the Paris evangelical missionaries Casalis, Arbousset, Daumas, and Rolland. On the 30th of May 1842 he approved a letter written by Casalis to Lieutenant-Governor Hare, asking that he might be taken into treaty relationship with the colonial government, as he was convinced that the existence and independence of his tribe could only be preserved by the protection of the sovereign of England. “There is no possible existence and independence for the Basutos except under the Queen,” the missionaries wrote. Compliance was urged upon the governor. Napier would not then hear of it. It had always been a matter of extreme importance, he said, to prevent in all the colonies any line of policy which could give the semblance of an idea that the government was instrumental in exciting the coloured against the white population. Shortly afterwards, however, such a treaty was made. The letter of the 30th mattered because it put Moshesh on the same road Faku had taken in January 1841 — a chief asking for a Cape paper against emigrant farms — and because Hare, not the castle, was the first man who had to answer it. [3] [4]
On the 7th of September Napier issued a proclamation announcing that the Queen would regard with the liveliest indignation any attempt by any of her subjects to molest or injure the native tribes, or to take unlawful possession of land belonging to them. By any such attempt, he added, the offending parties would forfeit all claim to the Queen’s protection and regard, and be held by her to have placed themselves in an attitude of resistance. He told Hare he did not anticipate any great benefit from the paper. After Natal was taken by the British forces under Cloete in June, a great number of the emigrant farmers recrossed the Drakensberg. Some moved over the Vaal, others joined their friends along the Riet, Modder, and Caledon rivers. In the neighbourhood of Philippolis there were henceforth two strong parties: one under Michiel Oberholster, well disposed towards the British government, the other not. Oberholster was one of the pre-Trek Boers who had settled in those parts before the great exodus from the colony. When Cloete was settling affairs in Natal, Oberholster and his party were anxious that Cloete should visit them and offer the same terms. Napier would not permit Cloete to go. The anti-British party in trans-Orangia was guided by Jan Mocke, who still believed the story of assistance from Holland and whose ambition was a republic under Pietermaritzburg west of the Drakensberg as well as east of it. On the 3rd of October Oberholster wrote to the civil commissioner on the state of those parts. In late November there was a ferment in the districts of Colesberg, Graaff-Reinet, and Cradock. Hare suspected the commencement within the colony of an organised revolt, and thought no time was to be lost in moving troops into the apparently disaffected parts. [3] [4]
On the 17th of May the Grahamstown library was formally opened with a dinner and dance at which about 140 people were present. The property had been transferred to the committee of management on condition that it should never be used for any other purpose. The shelves were soon stocked with about 4,000 volumes. At Cradock, a small village in an arid district on the left bank of the too often waterless Great Fish river, the majesty of the law was still enshrined in what had formerly been a private dwelling. In January the reverend Dr. Roux succeeded Mr. Pears as minister at Mooimeisjesfontein, and by his wish a few months later the name was changed to Riebeek East. The reverend Jan Hendrik von Manger continued to take an interest in educational matters until his death on the 2nd of May. In November a number of rules and regulations were drawn up by the synod, Napier having expressed himself most anxious to free the church from the trammels of secular interference in all spiritual or purely ecclesiastical matters. [3] [4]
The government bank, after the establishment of the Cape of Good Hope and South African banks, had ceased to pay; it was then some time in liquidation, and was finally closed on the 31st of December 1842. 184 emigrants landed at Port Elizabeth in the year, against 55 in the year before. On the 4th of October Sir Lowry Cole died after only an hour’s illness at Highfield Park. He was the governor who had sat in the castle from 1828 to 1833, and the third former Cape governor to end his days while Napier held the oaths — after Caledon in 1839 and Donkin in 1841. Petitions against the introduction of juvenile offenders, as an adjunct to the prisons of England, were heeded, and the proposed infliction stayed. The petitions mattered because Robben Island had already been refused as a dumping ground for Indian convict soldiers in 1841, and because a later ministry would try convicts for a Table Bay breakwater after that; the no of 1842 was the second of those refusals. [3] [4] [4]