“For every sum of 100 pounds deposited as above, the depositor will be entitled, for six months from the date of payment, to name a number of properly qualified emigrants, equal to five adults, for a free passage. Two children between one and fourteen are to be reckoned as one adult. The emigrants are required to be chosen from the class of mechanics and handicraftsmen, agricultural labourers, or domestic servants, and must be going out with the intention to work for wages. They are to be subject to the approval of the Commissioners, and must, in all respects, fall within their general regulations on the selection of labourers. The purchaser and his family cannot receive a free passage under this privilege.”
Part 1, Chapter III.
History of the Cape Colony.
The renowned promontory of the Cape was first doubled by the Portuguese navigator, Bartholomew Diaz, in the year 1487, but the discovery was not looked on as of any other importance than as opening the maritime route to India which that nation had so long sought after. Ten years later De Gama passed along the southern and eastern coast of Africa, and coming in sight of a fertile, pleasant country on Christmas day, he gave it the name of the Land of the Nativity, (Terra Natal) whence the appellation by which it is now known. In 1620, two of the officers of the English Merchant Adventurers landed in Saldanha Bay, and took formal possession of the country, in the name of James the First, but no European, settlement was attempted until the year 1650, when the Dutch India Company, at the recommendation of a surgeon of one of their ships, named Van Riebeck, placed a colony on the shore of Table Bay, further southward, for the purpose of affording supplies to their fleets.
Though the colony was at first composed, as was usual in those days, of persons of abandoned character, it grew and prospered, and in the course of about thirty years it received an accession of population of admirable character in the persons of French and German Protestant refugees, whom the atrocious proceedings of Louis the Fourteenth, in revoking the Edict of Nantes, and ravaging the Palatinate with fire and sword, had rendered homeless. These estimable exiles introduced the culture of the vine and other improvements, and the colony gradually spread itself along the belt of level land which extends itself eastward between the Lange Kloof and the sea.
About the same time Natal was visited by order of the Governor, and some idea was entertained of forming a settlement there, but, for some reason not now known, the project was abandoned.
The Dutch continued in peaceable possession of the colony for more than one hundred years longer, and had gradually spread themselves either as settlers or elephant hunters almost to the borders of the Orange River, when in 1795, a small English force, under General Craig and Sir Alured Clarke appeared, and the whole territory was at once surrendered. At the peace of Amiens, in 1802, it was restored to Holland; but in 1806 it again came into the hands of England, and was finally ceded to us in 1814. (Note 2.)
From the period of our establishment in the colony in 1806 till 1827 (with the exception of a change in the currency very displeasing to the Dutch), we were contented to stand by the laws by which it had been governed, with only such occasional amendments and modifications as the change of circumstances required. In that year, however, after three or four years’ notice and consideration, a code of English laws (not exactly the laws of England) was adopted. As, from their non-acquaintance with our language, it was impossible to make the Dutch thoroughly conversant with the principles upon which these laws were framed, they soon became discontented. The clerks in the public offices, to whom they applied occasionally for information, were unable to give their time to listen to their grievances; and, had they been inclined to enlighten them, their ignorance of the Dutch language rendered it impracticable. Previously to this, every district had been governed by a magistrate, or Landrost. He had to assist him a council of eight individuals, called Hemraaden, chosen from among the most respectable and influential landholders, who informed the inhabitants of all events and changes occurring in the colony and its laws, explained all difficulties, heard all complaints, and were, in short, the medium of communication between the people and the authorities. The English Laws completely superseded these arrangements, and the utter want of education among the Dutch, particularly the scattered farmers, rendered them jealous and suspicious of their new legislators, whose system (practically or theoretically) they could not understand.