Part 18

If there were no other charges against him than this one alone, an honest historian, whose duty it is to expose to scorn the evil deeds of ignoble men as well as to hold up to admiration the good deeds of the upright, would be compelled to pronounce Willem Adriaan van der Stel one of the most faithless and contemptible men of whom the records of any nation, ancient or modern, furnish an example. Many a governor has lost his head for crimes less glaring than his reckless neglect of duty for the sake of private interest.

[Sidenote: Historical Sketches.]

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.

[Sidenote: Spirit of the Country Districts.]

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.

[Sidenote: Historical Sketches.]

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.

[Sidenote: Grievances of the Burghers.]

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.

[Sidenote: Historical Sketches.]

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.

[Sidenote: Articles of Complaint.]

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.

[Sidenote: Historical Sketches.]

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.

[Sidenote: Action of the Indian Authorities.]

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.

[Sidenote: Historical Sketches.]

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]

[Sidenote: Violent Conduct of the Governor.]

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.

[Sidenote: Historical Sketches.]

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.

[Sidenote: Illegal Imprisonment of Burghers.]

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.

[Sidenote: Historical Sketches]

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.

[Sidenote: Treatment of Imprisoned Burghers.]