href="@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@41521@[email protected]#chap0101fn3" class="pginternal" tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">3] "It governed South Africa with a view to its own interests, its method of paying its officials was bad, its system of taxation was worse, in the decline of its prosperity it tolerated many gross abuses."

[3] George M. Theal, LL. D., in "Story of the Nations' Series."

Preliminary Period of British Rule

In this way were laid the foundations of character and custom upon which have been built the developments of the nineteenth century in South Africa. So far, however, there had been no real antagonism felt towards Great Britain, no apparent reason for its creation and no direct cause for its application. But, with the entrance of Holland into the league against England in 1795 and the evolution of India as an important dependency of the Island Kingdom, had come the first real clash of English and Dutch interests in South Africa through the capture of Cape Town. This preliminary period of British rule in the country lasted until 1803. Everything possible was done to conciliate the Dutch population, which in the country districts refused at first to have anything to do with, or to in any way acknowledge, the new Government. The people of Cape Town were treated with generosity. Officials taking the oath of allegiance were, as a rule, retained in their posts; the depreciated currency, amounting to a quarter of a million pounds sterling, was accepted by the authorities at its full nominal value; some very obnoxious taxes were abolished and a popularly chosen Council or burgher Senate was established in the capital. More important than all, the announcement was made that anyone might now buy and sell as he would, deal with whom he chose in a business way, and come and go as suited him upon land and water. The farmers were invited to Cape Town to trade as they might wish, and to lay any matters they desired before the Governor. The early British administrators included Major-General Sir J. H. Craig, the Earl of Macartney, Sir George Yonge and Major-General Sir Francis Dundas.

The New Government Unpopular

Unfortunately, the weaknesses inherent in the British Colonial system of that time soon manifested themselves in South Africa. While free trade was allowed and promoted throughout the Colony, and a great advance thus made on previous conditions it was soon found that external trade to the East was restricted by the existing monopoly of the British East India Company; while duties were, of course, imposed upon goods coming from the West in any but British ships. Even in this, however, there was an advance upon the previous limitations under which goods could not be imported at all by the people, even in Dutch ships. These regulations, it must also be remembered, applied equally, under the strict navigation laws of that time, to British Colonies in North America, including French Canada and the West Indies, as well as to South Africa. It was not an easy population to govern. The Dutch farmer did not like the oath of allegiance, although it was made as easy as possible for him to take. The very strictness of the new Government and the absence of corruption made it unpopular in some measure. The fact that Holland had become a Republic, which in time percolated through the isolation of the public mind, added to the prejudice against monarchical government which already existed as a result of the despotism of the Dutch East India Company. Naturally and inevitably positions under the Government soon drifted into the hands of men who could speak English and who possessed British sympathies. It is not difficult to realize that the somewhat sullen character of a Cape Town Dutchman who was always looking forward to some change in the European kaleidoscope—of which he naturally knew more than the farmers of the interior and therefore hoped more from—made co-operation difficult and at times unpleasant.

Kaffir Wars

In the interior there had been one or two petty insurrections, or rather riots, amongst the farmers, and in the last year of the century occurred the third Kaffir war. The first had been fought in 1779 under Dutch rule, and the troublesome Kosa tribe driven back over the Fish River which, it was hoped, could be maintained as a permanent frontier between the Colonists and the Kaffirs. The second was a similar but less important struggle with the same tribe in 1789. One was now to take place under British rule. The clans along the north bank of the River joined in a sudden raid into the Colony in February, 1799, took possession of a large strip of country, drove the fleeing settlers before them, attacked and almost surprised a force of British troops marching under General Vandeleur upon another errand to Algoa Bay, cut off a patrol of twenty men and killed all but four. By August, when a large body of Dutch volunteers and some British regulars were got together, all the border country had been harried. There was nothing else to plunder, and the Kaffirs therefore withdrew before the advancing force, and readily accepted terms of peace which General Dundas offered against the wish and advice of the settlers. Three years later the war was renewed, as a result of continued and isolated Kaffir depredations and, this time, the initial movement was made by a Dutch commando. It was defeated, but the Kaffirs soon became tired of a struggle in which there was no profit to them, and a new peace was patched up. Meanwhile, in this same year, a fresh and important element of the future was introduced into South African life by the arrival of the first Agents of the London Missionary Society, and in February, 1803, a temporary lull having occurred in the European conflict, Cape Colony was restored to the Holland Government and a Dutch garrison of 3,000 men placed at Cape Town under the control of a Governor of high military reputation and personal worth—Jan Willem Janssens.

Restored to Holland Government

During the next six years the Colony was governed under some of the milder laws of its mother-land; though not always to the liking of Dutch settlers, who objected to political equality—even in the limited application of the the phrase which was then in vogue—being given to "persons of every creed who acknowledged and worshipped a Supreme Being." To them there was only one Church as well as only one people, and religious or political equality was as extraneous to their ideas as racial equality. Nor would they have anything to do with the state schools which the Batavian Government tried to establish amongst them as being some improvement upon the few and feeble schools connected with the churches. All useful discussion or development of such tentative efforts at reform were checked, however, by the renewed outbreak, in 1803, of war in Europe, and by the appearance in Table Bay, on January 4, 1806, of a British fleet of sixty-three ships, with 7,000 soldiers under the command of Major-General (afterward Sir) David Baird. The troops landed on the beach at Blueberg, defeated a very motley force of German mercenaries, Dutch soldiers, volunteers, Malays, Hottentots and slaves under General Janssens and marched toward Cape Town. Capitulation followed, and, on March 6th, transports took away from South Africa the last representative of direct Dutch rule.

Again Under British Rule

The settlers did not take kindly to the new Government, and lived in continuous anticipation of some fresh change in the European kaleidoscope—so far as they could, in a very vague way, follow situation—which would once more revive the power of the Batavian Republic through a renewed French