He married Johanna Jacoba, daughter of Willem Six and his wife Catharina Hinlopen, a respectable family of Amsterdam, by whom he became the father of six children: Willem Adriaan, prominent in Cape history, Adriaan, who became governor of Amboina and the adjacent islands, Catharina, Frans, Hendrik, and Cornelis. The last named left the Cape for Batavia in January 1694 in the Ridderschap, and was never again heard of, but it was supposed that the ship was wrecked on the coast of Madagascar and that he had perished there.
Historical Sketches.
The directors of the East India Company assisted their protégé as much as they could in Holland, and at length when the situation of head of the Cape settlement was vacant, they offered it to him. He accepted the offer gladly, for it gave him a promise of financial improvement, and with his four eldest sons he embarked in the ship Vrije Zee and reached South Africa in October 1679, when he was nearly forty years of age. His lady with his daughter and his youngest son remained behind in Amsterdam, and he never saw his wife or daughter again.
The system of the East India Company of paying its officials was a bad one, for their salaries were very small indeed, and they depended upon perquisites to put by anything. And at the Cape there were not so many opportunities of making money by perquisites as in India, so that few men of ability cared to stay here long. When Simon van der Stel arrived in South Africa he had only the rank of a commander, which carried with it a salary in money less than a junior clerk receives to-day, but he had a furnished residence, a table allowance besides ample rations of food and even delicacies, slaves provided for servants, horses and a carriage free of charge, and he had liberty to trade in certain articles on his own account. Thus he could purchase a bale of calico or a crate of crockery from the captain of one ship and sell it to the captain of another, but he was not at liberty to deal in a single nutmeg or a pound of pepper, the traffic in spices being strictly reserved for the Company itself. He was prohibited also from carrying on farming operations or speculating in cattle, as the Company was desirous of encouraging colonists.
Abuses in India.
When Simon van der Stel became commander the settlement comprised only the cultivated ground at the foot of Table Mountain, two little outposts of the Company at Saldanha Bay and Hottentots-Holland, a cattle station of the Company at the Tigerberg, and land beyond the isthmus on which seven burghers were experimenting in cattle breeding. He is almost as much entitled to be termed the founder of the colony as Van Riebeek is, for Stellenbosch, the Paarl, Drakenstein, and French Hoek were occupied under his supervision. Of course in neither case was what they did a mere act of their own will: they simply carried out honestly and faithfully the instructions of the directors of the Company, who provided the people and the means that were needed. But to those who maintain that no good can be accomplished by men of mixed European and Asiatic blood, it may be pointed out that Simon van der Stel was a model ruler, able, industrious, energetic, honest, and absolutely faithful to the trust reposed in him. The only glaring fault in his character, and even that did not become conspicuous until he was advanced in years, was an inordinate love of money and a readiness to adopt measures to obtain it that to men of the present day seem beneath the dignity of a high official. But to Netherlanders of those times it did not appear incorrect for a man of position to make money in any way not legally wrong.
At this time so many abuses had crept into the administration of the Company’s affairs in Hindostan and Ceylon that the directors considered it advisable to adopt very drastic measures to rectify them. For this purpose they appointed a commission of three members to examine into matters there, and at its head they placed the very ablest officer in their service, a man in whose integrity they could implicitly rely, to whom they gave all the powers of a dictator. His name was Hendrik Adriaan van Rheede tot Drakenstein, but he was more commonly known by his title of lord of Mydrecht.
Historical Sketches.
Before he left Europe he was requested to visit the Cape settlement also, and had supreme power conferred upon him while here. Only twice during the whole term of the East India Company’s rule in South Africa has any one with the authority of the lord of Mydrecht visited the colony: on this occasion and in 1792-3, when the high commissioners Nederburgh and Frykenius exercised an unqualified dictatorship. It was a tremendous trust to bestow upon any individual. Under the commission or general power of attorney which he held, the lord of Mydrecht could appoint or displace any officials, create any new office or dispense with any old one, suspend or alter any law or regulation, and issue new laws, with the assurance that all he might do in this respect would be confirmed and ratified by the Assembly of Seventeen.
The lord of Mydrecht was in Capetown from the 19th of April to the 16th of July 1685, and during that time he made many new laws, most of which proved to be beneficial, though a few were not in accordance with the spirit of our day.[44] These, however, need not be referred to here: what is necessary to be mentioned is his making a grant of land to Simon van der Stel. He found that official performing excellent service, and throwing his whole heart into his duty, while receiving only the trifling salary and the emoluments of a commander. If he had raised his salary and increased his emoluments, every other official of similar rank in the service would have claimed to be dealt with in the same way, and he did not see fit to promote him to the rank of governor and give him the larger income which that office carried with it. Instead of doing this, he suspended the orders of the directors of the 26th of April 1668, which forbade the commander and the members of the council from cultivating more ground than a little garden and owning more cattle than they needed for their own use,[45] and on the 13th of July 1685 he granted to Simon van der Stel eight hundred and ninety-one morgen and a fraction of ground just beyond Wynberg in full property. This estate the commander named Constantia, and it has been so called ever since.