Willem Adriaan Van Der Stel, and Other Historical Sketches

by George McCall Theal

[63] In his Korte Deductie he stated that by purchasing from farmers and by the natural increase of his stock he had some thousands of sheep and some hundreds of horned cattle, but that he did not know the exact number. Instead of eighteen stations, he asserted that he had eight folds or kraals, but that part of his attempted excuse for his conduct is so palpably misleading that it is of no value whatever. The statistics given here are from those obtained after his recall.

[64] “Ondertusschen sullen uE: haer mede op hoede hebben te houden.”—Despatch signed by twelve of the directors, dated at Amsterdam on the 15th of March 1701.

[65] He was able to prove that he had paid for some timber drawn from the Company’s magazine, but the evidence of the master of a ship shows how articles could be obtained even where invoices and disbursements were audited. The skipper of one of the Company’s vessels needed a small quantity of iron for repairs, which he drew from the magazine. Before he sailed he was required to sign a receipt for a very much larger quantity, and on his remonstrating he was told that such was the usual custom. He grumbled, but was at length induced to attach his signature to the document. The receipt then became a voucher for the use of so much iron in the Company’s service. Willem Adriaan van der Stel was a poor man when he arrived in South Africa, and could not have established Vergelegen with his own means, although he received large bribes for favours granted. In Tas’s journal it is stated that from the contractor Henning Huising he obtained three thousand sheep, two slaves, and over £833, but no particulars are given as to the nature of the transaction. The bribers may be morally as guilty as the bribed, but with such a man as Willem Adriaan van der Stel there was no other way of getting any business transacted.

[66] Such extreme precaution was used to prevent the governor’s movements from becoming known in Holland or India that it is now impossible to ascertain from any documents in the archives which of these statements is correct. The long intervals that frequently occurred during his administration between the meetings of the council of policy, however, prove that the periods named by the burghers were quite possible. In 1700 there was one meeting in January, four meetings in February, one in March, one in April, one in May, one on the 28th of June, one on the 30th of August, and one on the 18th of December. In 1701 there was one meeting in January, three meetings in March, one on the 26th of May, one on the 29th of August, and one on the 30th of December. In 1702 there were only six meetings in all, the first being on the 23rd of May, in 1703 there were only five meetings, and in 1704 the same number. In 1705 there were ten meetings, with an interval of two months in one instance and of nearly three months in another. This is not very important, however, as the time of absence from his post admitted by himself is sufficient to convict him of unfaithfulness to his trust.

[67] This grant was of course illegal, as being in opposition to the orders of the directors in 1668, and Elsevier’s making use of it was the ground of his dismissal from the service when the directors became acquainted with the circumstances. There is so little on record concerning it that it is not now possible to say why Simon van der Stel acted as he did, but he may have reasoned that as the lord of Mydrecht would have given ground to the secunde in 1685, if the holder of the situation at that time had chosen to accept it, it would not be wrong to give it to another secunde. This is only supposition, but I cannot think of anything else that would have caused the old governor to overstep his authority in this manner.

[68] See letter from the reverend Petrus Kalden to the Classis of Amsterdam, dated 26th of April 1707, given in Bouwstoffen voor de Geschiedenis der Nederduitsch-Gereformeerde Kerken in Zuid Afrika, door C. Spoelstra, V.D.M. Volume I, page 56.

[69] For these statistics see the sworn depositions of men who had worked for him, printed in the Contra Deductie. The charge of not paying the Company its legal dues he took no notice of in his attempt to excuse his conduct, and there is not the slightest trace of such a payment being made in the accounts or other records of the time. The names of over sixty of the Company’s soldiers and sailors who worked for him for considerable periods are given under oath in the Contra Deductie, and of them he only accounted for twenty-eight as being paid by him. There is positive proof of his using the Company’s slaves on his farm, but the charge of taking twenty-five for himself and causing them to be written off in the Company’s books as having died must be regarded as doubtful. That the Company’s master gardener, Jan Hertog, was the overseer at Vergelegen, that the workmen there were under his direction, and that he was not away from the place for eight months at a time, was fully proved.

[70] See the Contra Deductie, pages 126, 180, and 279. Kolbe states that his wife attempted to commit suicide on account of his conduct, but I would be disinclined to accept the evidence of that author unless it was well supported. Tas, however, in his journal, states on information supplied to him that in December 1705 the governor’s wife tried to drown herself by jumping into the fountain behind her residence at the Cape, and that Mrs. Bergh sprang forward and drew her out of the water. She complained that life was a misery to her, owing to what she was obliged to see and hear daily. Of Mrs. Van der Stel so little is known that it would not be right to express an opinion as to whether her conduct towards her husband was or was not such as to provoke him to neglect her for other women, but this can be said with confidence, that the man who was utterly faithless towards his country, his rulers, and one who was weak enough to trust him as Wouter Valckenier had done, may without hesitation be pronounced capable of being equally faithless towards the mother of his children, the most unhappy woman in the settlement.

[71] This charge can neither be proved nor disproved by any documents in the Cape archives. But there is one circumstance in connection with it that throws strong suspicion upon the governor, and under any circumstances shows that he paid no attention to the instructions of the authorities in Holland. Their orders of the 27th of June 1699, throwing open to the burghers the cattle trade with the Hottentots, reached Capetown on the 24th of November of the same year; having been brought by the flute De Boer, which sailed from Texel on the 17th of July. The governor did not return to the castle from his visit to the Tulbagh basin until the 14th of December,—all his movements when absent on duty are carefully recorded,—and a placaat announcing the will of the directors ought to have been issued on the following day. Instead of that, however, it was not published until the 28th of February 1700, and then only owing to the presence of the commissioner Wouter Valckenier. It was during these two months and a half, as the burghers asserted, that the governor’s agents were engaged in procuring horned cattle and sheep for him by fair means or by foul, and that the Hottentots to a considerable distance from the Cape were despoiled and exasperated. From his general character, as delineated in the archives, one cannot say that he would scruple even at acts of robbery.

[72] See letters from the governor and council at the Cape to the governor-general and council of India, dated 18th of March 1706, and to the directors, dated 31st of March and 24th of June 1706, in the Cape archives. The abuse heaped upon the burghers in these documents is enormous, and indicates how weak the governor must have felt his attempted defence to be.