The governor was not the only official of the Company in South Africa who was farming on his own account, though he was the most prominent of them all, and his operations were far more extensive than those of any of the others. The secunde, Samuel Elsevier, an old and somewhat weak-minded man, had obtained a grant of the farm Elsenburg, near Klapmuts, from Governor Simon van der Stel,[67] which brought him in about £250 yearly after all expenses were paid. He might have cultivated it without reproach from the burghers if he had not always submitted his will to that of the governor. In the council he was regarded as a nonentity, simply giving his vote in accordance with the wishes of the head of the government. Two other members of the council of policy, the fiscal Johan Blesius and the military captain Olof Bergh, had also obtained grants of land, but were so moderate in their use that the burghers did not complain of them.
The reverend Petrus Kalden, clergyman of Capetown, had also obtained a grant of a farm, Zandvliet, between Stellenbosch and the head of False Bay. He spent a good deal of time there, but he afterwards proved to the satisfaction of the authorities in Holland that his object in doing so was not purely mercenary, but was mainly a wish to acquire a perfect knowledge of the Hottentot language, in order that he might attempt to teach those people the doctrines of Christianity, and so improve their condition.[68] The yearly income he derived from it cannot be ascertained, but the ground with the buildings which he erected upon it realised £1424 by public auction after his recall.
The governor’s brother, Frans van der Stel, who was not in the Company’s service, had a farm at Hottentots-Holland. He was intensely disliked by the other burghers, on account of his assuming an air of superiority over them, and, depending upon his relative’s support, doing pretty much as he liked. He was in the habit of requiring them to plough his land, to convey his produce to town, and perform other work for him, under threats that if they did not he would see that they should regret it.
There have never been people less inclined to submit quietly to grievances, real or imaginary, than the early colonists of Stellenbosch and Drakenstein. Even at this infant stage of the settlement’s existence they showed that great difference from the inhabitants of Capetown which is observable to the present day. They did not know it then, but it was they who were destined to impart that spirit of hostility to oppression and wrong which has ever since marked the country people of South Africa. It is not without reason that the farmers of the distant north and east to-day regard Stellenbosch and Drakenstein as the mother settlements of the country, and look upon Capetown almost as a foreign city. The spirit of the town is widely different from that of the country. And in 1705, when the first great struggle against tyranny and corruption commenced, the very best men of Stellenbosch and Drakenstein, those who had filled the posts of elders and deacons in the church, of heemraden in the district court, and of officers in the militia, were those who threw themselves into it. Among them was Jan Willem Grevenbroek, the most learned man in South Africa at the time, who had retired from the Company’s service, and had recently been an elder at Stellenbosch. His name should command the respect of students of ethnology, though his work has been to some extent distorted by a later writer. He took as active a part in the movement against the governor as was consistent with his character as a modest and godfearing student, though his name does not appear on the principal memorial that will presently be referred to.
The farmers did not know that instructions in their favour had been sent out by the directors, which the governor had disregarded, but they saw plainly that nothing but ruin was before them if matters went on longer as they were then going. The governor was turning every possible source of profit to his own account and that of his relatives and friends. He had eighteen different cattle stations or enormous grazing farms beyond the mountains, and would allow no one but himself and his brother to use the pasture there. His horned cattle numbered, as afterwards ascertained, fully a thousand head, and his sheep were eighteen thousand eight hundred all told. He had a vineyard sixty-one morgen and a half in extent at Vergelegen, and besides his plantations and cornlands there, he had taken possession of another tract of land nearly a hundred and nineteen morgen in extent, upon which he was growing wheat. His expenditure was very small, for he made use of the Company’s servants largely to do his work, and he paid no tithes of his grain to the Company, as the burghers were obliged to do.[69]
The governor had the first entry into the market, and high prices from foreign ships went into his pocket. Then his brother Frans at Hottentots-Holland, his father at Contantia, and the secunde at Elsenburg followed, and by the time all their produce was disposed of little indeed was left that the burghers of Stellenbosch and Drakenstein could sell to good account. In another way too the governor’s conduct was believed to be such as to forfeit the respect of the burghers, who were godfearing men. In his domestic life he was said to follow closely the example of our Charles II, and it was asserted that he had given strict orders that the ten commandments were not to be read in the church when he was present.[70] There is no way of either proving or disproving these charges against him, but the fact that they were made shows in how little esteem he was held.
In 1705 some of the farmers determined to complain to the Indian authorities, and they succeeded in forwarding to the governor-general and council at Batavia a list of charges against him. It was a dangerous thing to do, for if their names should become known, and no redress be afforded, they knew, that they would be made to feel the governor’s vengeance. The council was not regarded as any check upon him, and the military power was entirely at his disposal, so that to brave his anger was an act requiring more than ordinary moral courage. It was the commencement of the struggle against corruption and tyranny by the burghers of Stellenbosch and Drakenstein.
At Batavia no immediate action was taken in the matter, but a copy of the complaints, without the signatures to the document, was forwarded to the governor, who was required to answer to them. While the complainants were awaiting a reply from the Indian authorities, one of them, Adam Tas by name, a respectable burgher and a deacon of the Stellenbosch church, drew up a memorial to the directors in Holland. Tas was a native of the city of Amsterdam, who had received a good commercial education, and had come to Capetown in the capacity of bookkeeper in the service of the contractor Henning Huising, whose wife, Maria Lindenhof, was a sister of Tas’s mother. After serving as a bookkeeper for some time, Tas married a widow named Elizabeth van Brakel, whose former husband had left her a well-cultivated farm in the Stellenbosch district, and he then went to reside there. He had thus the qualifications and much of the knowledge necessary for the task he had taken in hand, but as he was ignorant of the instructions of the directors, the document which he drew up was in some points very much weaker than it might have been made if the official documents had been open for his inspection as they are now for ours. On the other hand, for the same reason some of the charges were perhaps slightly overdrawn, but the governor was subsequently unable to prove that the most serious of them were without solid foundation.
In this document the directors were informed of the governor’s extensive farming operations, and of his employment of the Company’s servants and slaves and of the use of the Company’s materials for his private service. He was accused of obtaining cattle by violent means from the Hottentots, who were provoked to retaliate upon innocent people for the wrongs done to them.[71] He was also accused of extorting cattle from burghers by improper means. He was stated to have been frequently absent at Vergelegen from two to six weeks at a time, when his public duties were neglected. He was charged with selecting all the best timber and staves for casks out of the Company’s stores, and paying less than the burghers had to pay for what was left; of preventing free trade in wine, and then extorting it from poor farmers at a very low price and selling it to foreign ships at an enormous profit; of monopolising all trade with foreigners; of requiring farmers to convey materials to Vergelegen without payment; of compelling the bakers, by threats of his displeasure if they did not, to buy his wheat at high prices; of defrauding the Company by not paying tithes of his wheat; of commandeering—to use an expressive colonial word—over four hundred woolled sheep from them without payment; of requiring to be bribed before he would issue title-deeds to farms; and of arranging the wine and slaughter licenses in such a manner that the holders could obtain what they needed at very low prices from the farmers by paying him very high prices for what he had to sell.
There were some other charges against him, but they were of less importance than these, and they need not be mentioned.
The secunde, Samuel Elsevier, and the clergyman, Petrus Kalden, were charged with being occupied with agriculture to a very large extent, and of neglecting their duties in consequence. Frans van der Stel, the governor’s brother, was declared to be a perfect pest to the settlement.
This memorial was dated the 5th of January 1706, and was signed by Jan Rotterdam, Henning Huising, Abraham Diemer, Nicolaas Diepenauw, Jan van Meerland, Jacob de Savoye, Willem Mensink, Stephanus Vermey, Guillaume du Toit, Pieter van der Byl, Adam Tas, Jacob van Brakel, Jacob Plunes, Hercules du Pré, Jacobus van der Heiden, Wessel Pretorius, Jan Elberts, Hans Jacob Conterman, Nicolaas Elberts, Jean le Roux, Ary van Wyk, Pieter de Mont, Pierre Meyer, Reinier van de Zande, Jacobus Louw, Daniel Sevenhofen, Ferdinandus Appel, Matthys Greef, Willem van Zyl, Daniel Hugo, Jacques Theron, Etienne Niel, Jean du Buis, Jacques Malan, Douwe Frederiks, Christiaan Wynoch, François du Toit, Claude Marais, Arend Gildenhuis, Cornelis van Niekerk, Nicolaas van der Westhuizen, Pierre de Villiers, Paul Couvret, Abraham Vivier, Abraham Bleusel, Jacques Pienard, Pierre Vivier, Esaias Costeux, Pierre Mouy, Etienne Bruere, David Senekal, J. le Roux, Jacob Vivier, Pierre Rousseau, Salomon de Gourney, Pierre Cronje, Coenraad Cyffer, Charles Marais, Louis le Riche, Nicolaas Meyboom, Jacob Cloete, and Jan Hendrik Styger.
In a volume published by the governor some time afterwards, as well as in his statements to the directors and the Indian authorities,[72] he attempted to explain away some of these charges, and he succeeded so far that several must be pronounced not proven, while in some others he established his innocence, but in all that related to his extensive farming operations and to his making use of the Company’s servants, slaves, and materials, he failed completely in overthrowing the charges made against him. He does not refer to his not having paid tithes of his grain, for he certainly could not refute that charge.
During the night of the 3rd of February 1706 the first five ships of the return fleet of that year, which sailed from the roads of Batavia on the 2nd of December 1705, cast anchor in Table Bay, and they were followed in the morning of the 4th by five others, all under the flag of Commander Jan de Wit. They had orders to remain here until the arrival of three ships from Ceylon and two others to be despatched later from Batavia, that all might sail together for Europe. It had been arranged with the English authorities in India that their return ships should also call at Table Bay, in order to proceed farther with the Dutch fleet, so that there might be a very strong force to oppose any French cruisers in the Atlantic.
With these ships the governor received a despatch from the Indian authorities enclosing a copy of the document in which he was accused of malpractices, that had been sent to Batavia in the previous year. He immediately concluded that similar charges would be forwarded to the Netherlands, and that a memorial embodying them must be in existence; but he was unable to learn where it was, or who were parties to it. The danger of his position, which he at once realised, now drove him to acts of extreme folly as well as of the grossest tyranny. To prevent the knowledge of his farming operations reaching the directors became the object of highest importance to him. If that could be done, he might still be safe, but if it could not, it would matter little what additional charges were brought against him, for in any case all would be lost. There is no other way of accounting for the absurd and violent measures that he now resorted to, for he cannot be regarded as insane, though the remark of one of his opponents that avarice had intoxicated him was doubtlessly true.
He now caused a certificate to be drawn up, in which he was credited with the highest virtues, and the utmost satisfaction was expressed with his administration. The male residents of Capetown were then invited to the castle, and were there requested to sign the certificate. His servants were sent out to collect in turn all the mechanics and labourers of every description in the town and all the fishermen, white and black, and to bring them to the castle to drink wine and beer and to smoke a pipe of tobacco at his expense. They mustered there party after party, and after making merry, allowed their names to be attached to the document, probably without knowing or caring what its contents were.
The landdrost of Stellenbosch, Jan Starrenburg by name, a mere tool of the governor, who had held office since July 1705, was directed to proceed with an armed band from house to house in the country, and require the residents there to sign it also. This was a much more difficult matter to effect than to get the signatures of the town’s people. Many of the farmers refused, even under the landdrost’s threats that they would be marked men if they did not. Not a few of the respectable names found on that extraordinary document are certainly not genuine, for they appear with a cross, though the men that they professed to represent could write letters and sign other papers as well as the governor himself could do. Of the two hundred and forty names found on it, less than one hundred are known in South Africa to-day, and of these, as already stated, many must have been placed there fraudulently. Surely no such means of obtaining a certificate of good conduct was ever resorted to by any other officer of rank in a colony.[73]
The governor suspected that a memorial to the directors concerning his conduct had been prepared to be sent to the Netherlands by some officer in the return fleet, and that Adam Tas, as a competent penman, had most likely written it. To get possession of his papers, an act of extreme violence, contrary to all law and justice, was then resolved upon. The landdrost of Stellenbosch was directed to arrest Tas, and without a warrant or any legal authority whatever, with a strong armed party he surrounded the house of that burgher at early dawn in the morning of Sunday, the 28th of February 1706, arrested him, sent him a prisoner to Capetown, searched his house, and carried away his writing desk. After this outrage there could be no truce whatever between the governor and his opponents, for if a burgher could be treated in this manner, upon mere suspicion of having drawn up a memorial to the high authorities, no man’s liberty would be safe. Bail was immediately offered for the appearance of Tas before a court of justice, but was refused. He was committed to prison, where he was kept nearly fourteen months in close confinement, without his wife or friends being permitted to see him, without writing materials, and even when his little son died, without being allowed to see the corpse.
In his desk was found the draft from which the memorial to the directors had been copied. It was unsigned, but a list containing a number of names and various letters which were with it indicated several of those who had taken part in the compilation. The completed memorial, with sixty-two names, thirty-one of which were those of Frenchmen, attached to it, was at the time in the house of a burgher in Capetown, where it was intended to be kept until it could be sent away with the return fleet.
The governor thus became acquainted with the nature and terms of the charges against him. On the 4th of March a number of ships’ officers were invited to assist in the deliberations of the council of policy, and some of the retired and acting burgher councillors were summoned to give evidence. These answered a few questions put to them by the governor, in a manner favourable to him. The broad council then consented to the issue of a placaat, in which all persons were forbidden to take part in any conspiracy or to sign any malicious or slanderous document against the authorities of the country, under pain of severe punishment. The ringleaders in such acts were threatened with death or corporal chastisement. The fiscal and the landdrost were authorised to seize persons suspected of such offences, and to commit them to prison. This placaat was on the following Sunday affixed to the door of the Stellenbosch church.
Within the next few days the governor caused the burghers Wessel Pretorius and Jacobus van der Heiden to be arrested and committed to prison, the retired burgher councillor Jan Rotterdam to be banished to Batavia, and the burghers Pieter van der Byl, Henning Huising, Ferdinandus Appel, and Jan van Meerland to be put on board a ship bound to Amsterdam. Jan Rotterdam was seventy years of age, and afflicted with diabetes, a disease that made it difficult for him to rise quickly from his seat. He was respected by every one, but the governor had taken a dislike to him because he did not rise in church when his Excellency entered, and only saluted by taking off his hat and bowing when seated on a stoep and his Excellency passed by. This was termed by the governor insolence, malice, and disrespect, and formed the principal complaint against him.[74] To this offence he had added, as had the others named, by signing the memorial. These men had no time given to them to arrange their affairs, but were hurried out of the country as if they had been malefactors. They were informed that they must answer before the supreme authorities at the places of their destination to the charges of sedition and conspiracy that would be forwarded by the Cape council, and if they had any complaints they might make them there also.
By these high-handed proceedings, which were hardly ever equalled by the most despotic monarch in Europe, and which were in direct opposition to the laws and customs of the Netherlands,[75] though indeed more than once violated there in times of popular uprisings, the governor hoped to terrify his opponents into signing the certificate in his favour and denying the truth of the charges against him. But not one of those who were confined on board the ships in the bay faltered for a moment. Their wives petitioned that the prisoners should be brought to trial at once before a proper court of justice, which was their right as free-born Netherlanders, and when it was hinted that if they would induce their husbands to do what was desired, release would follow, these true-hearted women indignantly refused.
The arrest and committal to prison of Nicolaas van der Westhuizen, Christiaan Wynoch, Hans Jacob Conterman, and Nicolaas Meyboom followed shortly. The governor felt sure now that the complaints of the burghers would reach Holland by some means or other, and therefore on the 31st of March 1706 he and the council addressed a letter to the directors, in which a very unfavourable description of the burghers who signed the memorial was given, and their conduct in doing so was styled conspiracy, sedition, mutiny, and rebellion.[76] With this letter was sent an attested copy of the certificate in his favour, as if it had been a voluntary and spontaneous act on the part of those whose names or marks were attached to it.
In the meantime the memorial had been committed to the care of Abraham Bogaert, a physician in the return fleet, who was refreshing himself on shore, and who had warm sympathy with the oppressed burghers. He afterwards wrote a history of these events, which is one of the best ever published, and which agrees in all respects with the records in the Cape archives. The Ceylon ships did not reach Table Bay until the 5th and 6th of March, and the two from Batavia only on the 24th and 26th of that month. The last arrival required a few days’ delay for refreshment, but at length all were ready for sea, as were the English ships that had been waiting to sail in their company. On Sunday, the 4th of April 1706, the anchors were raised, and the fifteen Dutch and nine English Indiamen stood out to sea with a favouring breeze. What a gallant sight it must have been for all but the four banished men, who were forced to leave all that was dear to them here in Africa, and their farms to be looked after by their wives alone! When the fleet was at sea and all fear of search was over, Bogaert delivered the memorial to Henning Huising.
The anchors of the ships were being raised and the topsails being sheeted home when the governor must have reflected that he was making a mistake in sending four of the burghers to Europe. In great haste he embarked in a galiot and followed the fleet as far as Robben Island. In the official records it is stated that he did this to show respect to the admiral, but no such method of showing respect was practised here before or since, and his opponents were probably right when they asserted that his object was to overtake the ship in which the burghers were, and release them. He did not succeed in doing this, however.
Within a week or two further arrests were made, when Jacob de Savoye, Pierre Meyer, Jacob Cloete, Jacob Louw, and one or two others were placed in detention. The health of some of the prisoners broke down under the rigorous treatment to which they were subjected: one—Jacobus van der Heiden—was confined for twenty-seven days in a foul dungeon, with a black criminal as his companion. Thirteen of them then, with a hope of obtaining liberty and the companionship of their families as an inducement on one side, and the horrible suffering of confinement on coarse and scanty fare in dark and noisome dungeons and debarred from the visits of relatives or friends on the other, gave way to the temptation, and replied to questions put to them disowning the truth of the assertions in the memorial and expressing contrition for having signed it. Among these thirteen was Adam Tas, and the circumstance of his having done so is certainly a blemish upon his reputation, though it would not be fair to speak harshly of him, considering the position in which he was placed. His recantation, however, was of no service, for the governor was devoid of anything like compassion towards him. These declarations, as they were termed, which were really of no more value than the confessions of men on the rack, were obtained at different dates from the 8th of March to the 7th of May 1706. The men who made them excused themselves afterwards for so doing by stating that it could not affect the charges against the governor and the other officials, which would be brought before the directors by those who were then on the way to Europe. And so, after an imprisonment varying in duration from a few days to a few weeks, all were released except Adam Tas and Jacob Louw.
On the 24th of June 1706 the governor and council of policy wrote again to the directors, vilifying in very strong language the burghers who had signed the memorial, enclosing copies of the declarations of those who had been terrified into denying the truth of their former assertions, and asking that a special commissioner should be sent out to inspect matters of every kind and report upon them. This request must have been made with the object of gaining time, for the governor knew well that his conduct would not bear such an inquiry.
For a short time matters were now quiet, but on the governor coming to learn the names of some more of his opponents, Willem van Zyl, François du Toit, Guillaume du Toit, Hercules du Pré, Cornelis van Niekerk, Martin van Staden, Jacobus van Brakel, Jan Elberts, and Nicolaas Elberts were cited to appear before the court of justice. These came to a resolution not to obey the summons before the decision of the directors should be known, and so they failed to attend. They were cited by placaat, but in vain. In consequence, on the 9th of August, by a majority of the court of justice sitting with closed doors each of them was sentenced for contumacy to be banished to Mauritius for five years and to pay a fine of £41 13s. 4d., half for the landdrost as prosecutor and half for the court. They were at the same time declared incapable of ever holding any political or military office in the colony.
This sentence was made public on the 23rd of August, and it tended to increase the hostility to the government. The whole of the Stellenbosch and Drakenstein district was now in a state of commotion. Work on the farms practically ceased, for no man or woman could tell what might not happen from hour to hour, and no one considered himself safe. The military outposts, excepting those at Waveren, Klapmuts, Groenekloof, and Saldanha Bay, at which twenty-four men in all were stationed, had been broken up before this date, so the burghers felt free to act. In the early morning of the 18th of September the farmers of Waveren, Riebeek’s Kasteel, and Drakenstein rode armed into the village of Stellenbosch, and at beat of drum drew up near the landdrost’s office. Starrenburg went out to them, and requested the drummer to be still; but that individual, who was a Frenchman, kept on beating, only observing that he did not understand Dutch. Some persons, to show their contempt for the landdrost, began to dance round the drum. Others inquired why there was to be no fair this year, such as there had always been since 1686. Starrenburg replied that the Indian authorities had prohibited it; but they would not believe him, and laid the blame upon the Cape government. Yet it was correct that the Indian authorities were solely responsible in this matter, as with a view to save expense, on the 29th of November 1705 they had instructed the council of policy not to contribute longer towards the prizes or to furnish wine and ale at the cost of the Company. There was thus no kermis or fair in 1706 and later.
After this the women expressed their views. The wives of Pieter van der Byl and Wessel Pretorius, speaking for all, informed the landdrost that they had no intention of submitting to his tyranny, but were resolved to maintain their rights. The spirit of the women of the country districts was thoroughly roused, and their opposition was as formidable as that of their husbands.[77] Starrenburg was obliged to return to his house in humiliation. The burghers remained in the village the whole day, setting him at defiance, but otherwise preserving perfect order.
A few days later two of the persons sentenced to banishment appeared in Stellenbosch without any support, and jeered at the landdrost, who dared not attempt to arrest them, as he could not even depend upon his subordinates. All respect for the government was gone.
It was now arranged between the governor and the landdrost that during the night of the 28th of September, after the closing of the castle gate, a party of mounted soldiers should march secretly to the Kuilen. At two o’clock in the morning of the 29th the landdrost was to meet them there, and was then before daylight to arrest those who were believed to be the leaders of the defiant party. But a petty official at the Kuilen, who sympathised with the burghers, managed to detain the party for a time, and when they at length left to try to seize Cornelis van Niekerk in his bed, the alarm had been given.
Daylight broke, no one had been captured, and there was nothing left for the landdrost and the soldiers but to retire to the village of Stellenbosch. No one there would give any information or sell a particle of food to the troops, and the landdrost was obliged to kill his own goats for their use until provisions could be sent from Capetown. Starrenburg having now soldiers at his back, the burghers sentenced to exile fled to Twenty-four Rivers, where they concealed themselves. The landdrost did his best to capture them, and on the 4th of February 1707 succeeded in arresting Hercules du Pré and Jacobus van Brakel, who were sent on board the Mauritius packet then lying in Table Bay. A month later Guillaume du Toit was arrested also and sent on board the same vessel. During this time the governor dismissed the heemraden and other officers who had been elected in the legitimate manner, and arbitrarily appointed creatures of his own to the vacant places.
On the 20th of February 1707 the frigate Pieter en Paul arrived in Table Bay. She had left Texel on the 2nd of November, and brought letters to some of the burghers, in which they were informed that their case had been decided favourably by the directors. She brought no official despatches, however, and the governor, who affected to disbelieve the assertions of the burghers, continued his tyranny as before.
On the 3rd of March five ships from Ceylon dropped their anchors in Table Bay, and were followed, 31st of March to 6th of April by six others from Batavia, forming the return fleet of that year, under Admiral Meynderts de Boer. In one of the ships from Batavia was Jan Rotterdam, who returned to South Africa in triumph. Upon the receipt of the complaints from the Cape concerning him and the governor’s comments upon what had occurred, the governor-general and council of India appointed a commission consisting of the ordinary councillor Pieter de Vos and the councillor extraordinary Hendrik Bekker to investigate the matter, and take Rotterdam’s evidence. On the 18th of September 1706 these gentlemen sent in a report, of which there is a copy in the Cape archives. On this the governor-general and council decided, on the 5th of October, to send all the papers to the Netherlands, that the directors might take what action they chose in the matter. On the 31st of August they had decided to give Rotterdam a free passage to Holland, with liberty on his arrival at the Cape to request permission to remain here to attend to his affairs, if he chose to do so.[78] There was no necessity for him to make any request, as before the fleet left Table Bay the tyranny of the governor was at an end.
While these events were taking place in South Africa, a commission in Amsterdam was actually making inquiries into the conduct of Governor Willem Adriaan van der Stel. He knew nothing of this, nor did the burghers know how information concerning his conduct had reached the Netherlands.[79] By some means, however, which cannot be ascertained now, the directors had obtained an inkling of the state of affairs, and on the 26th of October 1705 they appointed the members of the chamber of Amsterdam a commission to inquire into the matter and report upon it. This commission had the official correspondence from the Cape before it, but no mention could be found in that of either Vergelegen or the governor’s movements. It would seem from it as if everything was going on smoothly and satisfactorily at the Cape, and the governor was doing his duty as an honest man.
Other tidings reached Amsterdam, however, in the course of the next few months which caused the directors to become alarmed. What these reports were exactly it is not now possible to discover, nor can the channels be ascertained by which they were conveyed, but it cannot be far wrong to conclude that they referred to the governor’s frequent visits to Vergelegen and his long sojourns there, when the castle and the garrison were left to take care of themselves. With a governor so faithless, if what they heard was true, they might lose the half way house to India any day, and so on the 8th of March 1706 they appointed a special committee representing all the chambers and including their two advocates to devise measures for the security of the settlement.[80]
Meantime, on the 15th of February 1706 the chamber of Amsterdam had appointed a committee, consisting of Messrs. Bas, Van Castricum, De Witt, Lestevenon, and Trip, with Advocate Scott, to examine thoroughly into the complaints against the governor and bring up a report on the subject.[81] So there can be no doubt that even if the charges drawn up by Adam Tas and sent to Holland by the return fleet of 1706 had not reached the directors, the circumstances connected with Vergelegen would have become known, and the faithless and rapacious governor have met with his deserts. But as the material upon which to form a judgment was not as perfect in Holland as could be wished, the arrival of the fleet then on its way from India to Europe was looked forward to with some anxiety by both the committees, as it would probably bring despatches from the governor and council of policy that would assist them to come to a decision.
On the 27th of July 1706 that fleet which, as has been recorded, sailed from Table Bay on the 4th of April under Admiral Jan de Wit, reached Texel in safety. There was then no lack of evidence as to what had transpired at the Cape, it was to hand in fact in superabundance. As soon therefore as the directors had read the official despatches from the governor, including the testimonial in his favour which he had caused to be drawn up and which must have excited their contempt for a man who could adopt such a measure in face of his treachery that could no longer be concealed, they sent the whole to the chamber of Amsterdam. Of the four burghers exiled to Europe, one, Jan van Meerland, died on the passage. The others, as soon as they could do so after their arrival in Amsterdam, presented to the directors the memorial that Tas had drawn up, with the various documents attached to it. After being read by them, it also was sent to the chamber of Amsterdam.
But now a great change in the attitude of the East India Company towards the nature of the various offences committed by the governor took place. His defiance of their orders not to cultivate ground or own cattle, his treachery in leaving his duty and residing frequently at Vergelegen, thus exposing the colony to the utmost danger, and his use of their materials and their workpeople at Vergelegen and elsewhere, robbery as it was, was permitted to fall into the background, and his lawless violence towards the burghers who had complained of his misdeeds became the most prominent subject enquired into. The whole of the tyranny displayed by him was not indeed known, but sufficient had transpired before the departure of the fleet from Table Bay to rouse the indignation of the free Netherlanders, and the directors, even if they had not been disposed to do justice themselves, dared not provoke an outcry that one of the most cherished rights of a citizen was being violated in their dependency at the Cape. The opponents of the Company, the men who wanted something in its place in which they should have a personal interest, would certainly make use of such an outcry to attack it in the States-General, and therefore this charge must be attended to before any other.
The committee of the chamber of Amsterdam investigated the matter very thoroughly. Unfortunately the debates were not recorded, and only the resolutions were preserved, just as in the proceedings of a legislative body to-day. But these resolutions show that all possible trouble was taken to arrive at the truth, and notwithstanding the urgency of the case, there was no undue haste, for it was only on the 11th of October 1706 that a report to the chamber was sent in.[82] In addition to the documents examined by the committee, it had taken the evidence of the exiled burghers and of the ships’ officers who had been two months at the Cape. Some of these had lived on shore during that time, and had witnessed the violent acts that had put the whole settlement into confusion and the manner in which signatures to the certificate in the governor’s favour were obtained, so that document was held as of no weight whatever. The governor’s comments upon the charges against him also were so weak that they were utterly valueless.[83]
For instance, his only excuse for his possession of Vergelegen was that if the Company’s servants had no land they, himself included, would be obliged to buy what grain, cattle, wine, vegetables, fruit, and other necessaries they required from unreasonable farmers at whatever rates might be demanded, and might even be at the mercy of those farmers to be supplied or not. This would surely, he said, be intolerable to officials of rank. That was the best and indeed the only excuse he could make for having in his possession, in opposition to the direct orders of the directors, a thousand head of horned cattle and eighteen thousand eight hundred sheep, for producing eleven hundred muids of wheat and fifty-six leggers of wine yearly. And that too when he was provided by the Company with rations[84] on an exceedingly liberal scale, when he was legally and honestly entitled to whatever vegetables and fruit he needed for his own family’s use out of the Company’s gardens in Capetown, at Rustenburg, and at Newlands, when he had an adequate table allowance in money to purchase anything else that was needed, as may be seen in the yearly accounts, and when he was provided with twenty slaves as domestics, who were entirely maintained by the Company.
As for the woolled sheep that he was accused of taking from the farmers without payment, his defence was that he had sent out two men to obtain them either in exchange for others or for money, that they had returned with one hundred and seventy-eight, and that he thought he had paid for them. He denied positively that he had taken bribes for giving title-deeds to ground, but it was proved conclusively that he had received large presents and had made extensive purchases without payment from those whom be favoured. The whole defence was as weak as these examples, except in a few particulars, and with the oral evidence against him, the committee could only come to one conclusion.
The chamber of Amsterdam approved of the report of its committee, and requested the members to go over it again carefully and draw it up in such a form that it could be presented in the name of the full body to the assembly of seventeen. On the 25th of October accordingly the report was brought before the full chamber and adopted, when it was signed by all the members present, sixteen in number, and was then forwarded to the directors. Among those who signed it was the same Wouter Valckenier[85] who had granted Vergelegen to Van der Stel, who was then a member of the chamber of Amsterdam, and immediately afterwards was elected to a seat in the directorate.
In this report the burghers who signed the complaints against Van der Stel and others were acquitted of sedition, conspiracy, or treason, and the action of the governor towards them was consequently declared to have been unjust.
It was recommended
That all those banished from the Cape should be restored to their homes at the Company’s expense, and all those imprisoned be liberated.
That recompense should be made to the banished men for the damages sustained by them, either by giving contracts to them or allowing them to take anything they needed to the Cape free of charge for freight.
That the governor Willem Adriaan van der Stel, the secunde Samuel Elsevier, the clergyman Petrus Kalden, and the landdrost Jan Starrenburg should be recalled at once, but be permitted to retain their salaries and rank, though without any authority.
That Frans van der Stel should be required to remove from the Company’s possessions.
That the estate Vergelegen at Hottentots-Holland, as acquired wrongfully and without proper authority, and for the possession of which approval was never obtained, should be restored to the Company with all the plants on it, and that the buildings should be taken over on a valuation.
That enquiry should be made into the manner in which the retired governor Simon van der Stel became possessed of his landed property, especially of the Great Rietland or Zeekoe Valley, and a report thereon be sent to the Assembly of Seventeen.
That thereafter no servant of the Company should be permitted to hold any land in property or on lease, or possess any cattle, or traffic in cattle, corn, or wine, directly or indirectly.
That every colonist should be free to slaughter and sell cattle, and that contracts should be made to supply the Company’s passing ships with flesh at thirteen duiten a pound.
That the license to sell wine should be disposed of in four parts.
And finally that emigration to the Cape should cease.
This report was adopted by the assembly of seventeen on the 26th of October, and four days later, 30th of October 1706, a letter signed by the directors was delivered to the master of the ship Kattendyk, then lying at Texel ready for sea, with orders to deliver it to the governor Willem Adriaan van der Stel in presence of witnesses.[86] The Kattendyk with four other Indiamen left Texel on the 25th of December 1706 under convoy of four ships of war, but after leaving the Channel she lost sight of the rest of the fleet, so she came on alone, fortunately without falling in with French cruisers, and anchored in Table Bay in the morning of the 16th of April 1707. The skipper took the letter on shore, and delivered it to the governor as directed.