[73] This document is in the Cape archives. It is in as good a state of preservation—excepting one leaf—as if it had been drawn up yesterday.
[74] See the letter of the governor and council at the Cape to the governor-general and council of India, of the 18th of March 1706. For this and subsequent events to the governor’s recall see the Proceedings of the Council of Policy and the Cape Journal for 1706 and 1707 in the Cape archives.
[75] One of the chief privileges secured to the free Netherlanders by their revolt against Spain and the long and successful war that followed was security from confinement except as a punishment for crime. A man suspected of having committed an offence could be arrested on a warrant properly issued by a court of justice, and was then either released on bail or speedily brought to trial, according to the nature of the charge.
[76] In a letter to the Indian authorities it is also termed blasphemy.
[77] “Maar Edele Gestrenge Heer, de wyven zyn alsoo gevaarlyk als de mans, en zyn niet stil.”—Extract from a letter of the landdrost Starrenburg to the governor Willem Adriaan van der Stel, dated 18th of September 1706. In the Cape archives.
[78] See letter from the governor-general and council of India to the governor and council at the Cape, dated 30th of November 1706. In the Cape archives.
[79] Tas mentions in his journal under date 19th of June 1705 that he had heard of complaints about the governor having reached the Netherlands, but gives no particulars.
[80] “Tot het stellen van de nodige ordres voor de securiteijt van de Caep de bonne Esperance, en daer toe soodanige middelen te adhiberen en in ’t werck stellen, alsmede tot bereijkingh van dat ooghmerck sal nodigh en dienstigh aghten, is goetgevonden te versoecken en committeren, gelijck als versoght en gecommittert werden bij dese, wegens de kamer Amsterdam de heeren Witsen en Hooft, wegens de kamer Zeeland de heer d’Huijbert, en wegens de kameren van ’t zuijder en noorder quartier de heeren van Blois en van Gent, beneffens beijde d’ advocaten van de Compagnie.”—Resolution of the Assembly of Seventeen adopted on the 8th of March 1706, copied by me from the original volume in the archives at the Hague, and published in Belangrijke Historische Dokumenten over Zuid Afrika, Deel III, page 3.
[81] See Belangrijke Historische Dokumenten over Zuid Afrika, Deel III, page 7.
[82] See Belangrijke Historische Dokumenten over Zuid Afrika, Deel III, page 7.