Willem Adriaan Van Der Stel, and Other Historical Sketches

by George McCall Theal

In the evening of the 3rd of April 1702 the outward bound ship Meresteyn, an Indiaman of the first class, ran ashore on Jutten Island, and in less than an hour broke into little pieces. Her skipper was endeavouring to reach Saldanha Bay, and the ship was in a heavy surf before any one on board suspected danger. The majority of her crew were lost, as also were two women and five children passengers for the Cape. Ninety-nine persons managed to reach the shore.

In March 1702 a marauding party, consisting of forty-five white men and the same number of Hottentots, whose deeds were afterwards prominently brought to light, left Stellenbosch, and remained away seven months. They travelled eastward until they reached the neighbourhood of the Fish river, where at daylight one morning they were attacked unexpectedly and without provocation by a band of Xosa warriors who were fugitives from their own country and were living in friendship with the Hottentots. The assailants were beaten off, followed up, and when they turned and made another stand, were defeated again, losing many men. One European was killed. The party then commenced a career of robbery, excusing their acts to themselves under the plea that they were undertaken in retaliation. They fell upon the Gonaquas and other Hottentot hordes, shot many of them, and drove off their cattle.

The perpetrators of these scandalous acts were not brought to justice. In after years when the governor and the colonists were at variance, and each party was endeavouring to blacken the reputation of the other, the governor stated that they were in league with the colonists and were too numerous to be punished without ruining half the settlement. This statement was, however, indignantly contradicted by the most respectable burghers, who asserted that the marauding Europeans were miscreants without families or homes, being chiefly fugitives from justice and men of loose character who had been imprudently discharged from the Company’s service. The burghers maintained that they ought to have been punished, and that the real reason why they were not prosecuted was that the governor’s agents had obtained cattle for him in the same manner, which would be brought to light at a trial. The names of the forty-five white men who formed the robber band are given. Forty of them are quite unknown in South Africa at the present day, and the remaining five are of that class that cannot be distinguished with certainty, so that the statements of the burghers are strongly borne out.

Expedition to Natal.

Owing chiefly to the scarcity of timber and fuel, in 1705 it was resolved to send an expedition to Natal and the adjoining coast, to make an inspection of the country and particularly of the forests there. The schooner Centaurus, which had been built at Natal in 1686-7, principally of timber growing on the shore of the inlet, was a proof that the wood was valuable, for she had been in use nearly fourteen years before needing repair. The galiot Postlooper was made ready for the expedition. Her master, Theunis van der Schelling, had visited Natal when he was mate of the Noord in 1689 and 1690, and therefore knew the harbour. He was instructed to make a thorough exploration of the forests, and to frame a chart of the coast. A sailor who was expert in drawing pictures was sent to take sketches of the scenery.

The Postlooper sailed from Table Bay on the 20th of November 1705. She reached Natal on the 29th of December, and found the bar so silted up that she could only cross at high water. There were not so many cattle in the neighbourhood as there had been sixteen years before. Wood still remained on the shores of the inlet in considerable quantities.

Historical Sketches.

In December 1689 a purchase of the inlet and surrounding land had been made from the chief then living at Port Natal, and had been recorded in a formal contract, two copies of which had been drawn up. The one kept by the Dutch officers was lost when the Noord was wrecked in January 1690, and the master of the Postlooper had therefore received instructions to endeavour to procure the other, that had been left with the chief, in order that a notarial copy might be made. The chief who sold the ground was dead, and his son was now the head of the tribe or clan, whichever it may have been. Upon Skipper Van der Schelling making inquiry of him concerning the document, the chief stated that he knew nothing about it, and supposed it had been buried with his father’s other effects. It was evident that he did not recognise the sale as binding upon him or his people.

At Natal an Englishman was found who gave his name as Vaughan Goodwin, and who stated that he was a native of London. He had two wives and several children. His story was that he arrived in February 1699 in a vessel named the Fidele, and with two others had been left behind by Captain Stadis, who intended to form a settlement there. They were to purchase ivory from the blacks, for which purpose goods had been left with them, and were to keep possession of the place until Captain Stadis should return, which he promised them would certainly be within three years; but he had not yet made his appearance. In 1700 the blacks some distance inland had killed the other white men on account of their having become robbers.

The life which Goodwin was leading seemed so attractive to two of the Postlooper’s crew that they ran away from the vessel. When crossing the bar in leaving Natal the galiot lurched, and the tiller struck the skipper in the chest and hurt him so badly that he became unfit for duty. There was no one on board who could take his place, so the vessel returned to the Cape without any further attempt at exploration being made. She dropped anchor again in Table Bay on the 8th of March 1706.