The following letter to his sister Mrs. Sargant shows the feeling excited in him by Sir William Molesworth’s attack on him in the House of Commons on April 10th, in which he was accused of burdening the empire by the annexation of 105,000 square miles of new territory and provoking his local troubles by high-handed and despotic government.
“King William’s Town, 18th June, 1851.
“Waterloo.
“My dearest Alice,
“I wish I was half the active fellow now I was then, for I have need of it, seeing I am Her Majesty’s ‘Despotic Bashaw’ from Cape Point to Delagoa Bay to the east, and to the great newly discovered lake to the north-west—without a legislature, and in the midst of a war with cruel and treacherous and ungrateful savages and renegade and revolted Hottentots. These Hottentots have been treated as the most favoured people, enjoying all the rights, civil and religious, of the inhabitants at large of the Colony—fed as a population when starving,—yet have these ungrateful wretches in great numbers (not all) revolted and joined their hereditary and oppressive enemy the Kafir, who drove them from the Kye over the Fish River, and who have destroyed them as a nation.
“I have had so much to do and some little anxiety of mind, although I sleep like a dormouse, that I have not written lately to one so dear to me, but Juana has. The war-making Kafirs are cowed by the continued exertions among them of my numerous and vigorous patrols, but they are in that state of doggedness they will neither come in nor fight. By every communication I have open to me, I offer peace to the people, but the chiefs must await my decision, their conduct has been so treacherous, cunning, and deceitful. I have succeeded in maintaining in peace and tranquillity nearly one-half of the population of British Kaffraria, those fortunately next to the sea, while the Gaika Kafirs, natives of the mountains adjoining the Hottentot great location of the Kat Province, are all at war. This shows my system cannot be oppressive, or I should have had no friendly Kafirs, whereas the latter escort my waggons with supplies, slaughter cattle, carry my mails, assist me in every way in their power, which affords better argument in refutation of the Radical and garbled untruths, though founded on facts, of Sir W. Molesworth. I will give you an example [of one] among other accusations of my despotism. The Kafir Hermanus, who by birth is a negro slave, was ever heretofore with his people an enemy to the Kafir, because it was his interest to be friendly to us. After the war of 1835-6, Sir B. D’Urban gave him a grant of a beautiful tract of country within the Colony upon the ever-supplying-water, the Blinkwater, stream. His title was disputed by some of the colonists, and it was complained that he paid no quit-rent as they all did. It was just, and only just, that if he was protected by the government, he should contribute, equally with others, his quota for its maintenance. I therefore, as a part of a general system, exacted a quit-rent, a mere trifle, which was the best possible title and deed of occupation, yet does this throating Sir W. M. bring forward this as an act of despotism. It is really ludicrous.
“But for this inexplicable Hottentot revolution, I would have put down the Kafirs in six weeks. These Hottentots are the most favoured race on earth, yet have a set of Radical London Society missionaries been preaching to them like evil spirits that they were an oppressed and ill-used race, until, encouraged by violent meetings all over the Colony upon the convict question, they have met with arms in their hands, arms given to them by us, for the purpose of joining the Kafirs to drive the English over the Zwartkop River beyond Uitenhage.
“I have endeavoured to administer this government so as to allow the all-powerful sun to shine forth its glory upon all its inhabitants, whether black or white, equally, and I have no other object than the welfare of the people generally. I have said, ‘Lay before me your wants; they shall be considered and your wishes met if practicable.’ This was appreciated until the d—— convict question arose. The emancipated blacks in Cape Town, the Hottentots in the Kat River, held anti-convict meetings got up by white Radicals, who have thus induced the coloured classes upon this frontier and in many other parts of the Colony to believe that separate interests exist for white and black.
“The Kafir has been fostered by the most benevolent acts of kindness by me as a Governor. My study has been to ameliorate their condition from brutes to Christians, from savages to civilized men. They progressed in three years beyond all belief until some white-faced devils (the sable king often wears a white face) got in among them, persuaded the chiefs my object was their extermination, and while the people clung with avidity to my protection from the former tyranny they groaned under, the chiefs asserted their feudal authority, and such is man in a wild state of nature, he cleaves to the hereditary rule of oppressors of his forefathers—with tears in his eyes. I have seen many weep when they came to say to me farewell; ‘Our country will be lost.’ Let Sir W. M. and his myrmidons deny this; he cannot, but he can assert that just measures are foul, despotic, and arbitrary acts.
“Juana is in better spirits now since the reinforcements have arrived, I hope. Since I have received the dear Duke’s kind letter, Juana regards me as supported by old friends and present master.[209] The latter gentleman and I understand each other. I will be censured by no man, but I will endeavour to obey where I can. He affronted me by finding fault with an ‘abortive attempt to reform the Legislative Council,’ which made my blood boil, although my remonstrance was as mild as milk. I think the recent attempt he and his colleagues have made to form a government has been fully as abortive as mine, and they have discovered the impossibility of making legislators of men who will not undertake office. Since the outbreak all his communications have been most complimentary.