slave-owner's grievance, without considering their distribution, or their relative value to the slaveholder. In the southern districts slave-labour was accumulated in a few hands, the trades and mansions and tillage farms of these districts commonly employing as many as forty slaves in single ownership. In the frontier districts, on the other hand, the number of slaves on each holding was comparatively small, but a far larger proportion of the white inhabitants were slave-holders. Moreover, owing to the sparseness of the white population, slave labour was more essential to the frontier farmer; while it was obviously far easier for him than for the more civilised inhabitant of a long-settled district to trek away into the wilderness. These considerations seem to go a long way towards explaining the contrast between the number of slaves and that of emigrants in the southern and the frontier districts, respectively, on which Dr. Theal builds so weighty a conclusion. It is certainly remarkable that Dr. Theal, who has brought out the difference of slave-distribution very clearly in his Compendium,' should have deliberately ignored it in his History,' for the purpose of a purely political argument which disregards both historical precedent and probability.

A much fairer test than the number of slaves is surely to be found in the distribution of the individual claims for compensation. In the urban districts the total number of these claims appears to have been small in proportion to the population, while the number of slaves in each case is relatively high. In the frontier districts, however, exactly the opposite conditions obtained, so that the loss of the frontier farmer was more widely distributed, and the grievance more generally felt. The figures indeed would be quite remarkable if they were worked out on the basis of population. As it is, they may be taken to bear something like the following proportions :

1. Total number of claims in the Cape Colony, 6334.

2. Total number of claims in the emigrants' districts, 1555. It appears then that approximately one-fourth of the whole number of claims emanated from these thinly peopled districts. It was indeed a population of small slave-holders. In Graaff Reinet alone there were five hundred and forty claims, or more than in any other single division of the Colony, with the exception of a portion of Stellenbosch. Now Dr. Theal has himself described the importance of the famous 'Resolutions of Graaff Reinet'-which were adopted at the time when (as he puts it) the torture inflicted upon the slave-holders was so acute as a possible compromise for emancipation. meeting of the local slave-holders could take the lead in this

If a

matter in the year 1826, how can Dr. Theal ignore their interest therein a few years later?

It has been suggested as a probable explanation of the comparatively small number of slaves held by the individual farmers in the frontier districts that these settlers were able to command the labour of hordes of prædial serfs, the Hottentots and Kaffirs, who were neither bought nor sold, but whose condition was scarcely less than servile. An idea of the extent of this employment, before the remedial legislation which preceded the emancipation itself, may be formed from an official return of the year 1801, which gives the population of Graaff Reinet as twelve thousand, of whom seven thousand were Hottentot 'servants,' without including one thousand six hundred more who had been destroyed' in the recent disturbances.*

But after all is it worth while disproving what the leaders of the emigrants admitted themselves? Here are their own words :

We complain of the severe losses which we have been forced to sustain by the emancipation of our slaves and the vexatious laws which have been enacted respecting them.' †

Can words be plainer than these? But apart from this plain statement the fact was notorious at the time, and it was even remarked with surprise that some were emigrating who were not slave-holders at all. It seems then that in his anxiety to shield his clients from the odium which attaches in the present day to the traditions of slavery, Dr. Theal renounces on their behalf opinions which they notoriously held and which they ostentatiously expressed.

A very different tone pervades the series of colonial lectures which were delivered some fifty years ago by Judge Cloete before the Literary Society of Pietermaritzburg. The author of these charming essays was of Dutch descent, but this was no bar to his advancement in the English service. After filling several important offices, he was appointed in 1843 High Commissioner for Natal, which when the last of these lectures was delivered, in the year 1855, was in a fair way to settle down as a British colony. Mr. Cloete was exceptionally qualified, by his Dutch descent and colonial proclivities, to address such an audience, and the several events which led to the Great Trek were within his personal knowledge. For this reason perhaps the author lays the train of these events after the year

* Records,' iii, 427.

† Manifesto of the Emigrant Boers, dated 22nd January, 1837, and published in the 'Grahamstown Journal' of 2nd February, 1837.

1813, although a study of the older colonial records would have indicated, as we have seen, a date considerably earlier.

The story of the rebellion of 1815, caused by the death of a farmer in resisting_the_execution of a warrant, is told by Mr. Cloete and by Dr. Theal in much the same words; and the facts of the case have never been disputed. Neither of these writers, however, has placed the case in a clear light by reference to its local environment. Mr. Cloete, indeed, has laid stress upon the vexatious prosecutions of the frontier farmers before a new-fangled tribunal, but it would now be admitted that this circuit of the justices of the High Court through the distant provinces of the interior was a much needed reform. The local magistrate, at least, was able to testify to the improvement which this Court had effected by checking the 'wanton and atrocious conduct of the ignorant and half-savage Boers of the frontier' towards their slaves and Hottentot servants.

Now, according to Dr. Theal, these outrages existed only in the imagination of the missionaries, and were cruel libels upon the 'respectable families of the frontier.' Unfortunately, however, the authentic records of several cases during this period prove that the most atrocious cruelty was not regarded as incompatible with the highest respectability. We will cite two such cases which were established on appeal.* In one of these a farmer named Van Reenen was convicted of the manslaughter of a slave under circumstances of almost inconceivable barbarity. The slave was at work upon the land when he was observed to 'stagger' and fall. The overseer, an infirm old man, having failed to get him up' with the aid of a switch, sent for his master, who hastened to the spot armed with a sjambok. At the sight of the sjambok the wretched creature strove to rise. Having exhausted the resources of the sjambok, Van Reenen sent for the paarde-streng' (trace), which was apparently a favourite instrument of torture, and when this arrived he applied it with such success that the slave was at last got up, only to stagger and fall once more. A fresh beating followed, and, when the day's work was ended, a formal flogging was performed in the kitchen, until, as the servants deposed who held the victim in position, the blood flew in our faces and we were obliged to turn our heads aside.' Then the sufferer's wounds were washed with the juice of bitter figs and he was

* See 'Cape Town Gazette,' No. 352, and Governor Sir J. F. Cradock's comments on these cases in his despatch of 15th April, 1814. The texts of the cases will be found in the enclosures. (R. O. Cape,' 43 and 44.)

dragged to the forge, where irons were welded on his limbs. Finally he was slung on a beam with his head and side only. touching the ground. After remaining in this position for some time he was taken down and locked in the 'slave-house,' where he was found cold and dead. On hearing the news Van Reenen ordered him to be buried and complained that he had had bad luck that day: first he had lost a horse and now a slave. When his victim's body was exhumed it was found to be covered with violent contusions' which, according to the medical evidence, must have been inflicted in a manner disgraceful to human nature.' Even when convicted of these atrocities, Van Reenen showed no sign of remorse, but addressed a memorial to the Government urging that the ignominious punishment' of imprisonment would cause him to suffer in his honour and reputation,' and would leave a reproach on his family, 'not of the meanest in the town.'

The second case is even more appalling in its revelation of utter callousness. Here another farmer, named Cloete, was convicted on the clearest evidence of the murder of a Hotten

tot girl. It seems that whilst hunting in company with a Hottentot retainer, he surprised a little native girl. Ears of corn were strewn upon the ground, and the child confessed that her mother had taken these from the corn-fields and had now gone down to the river to quench her thirst. Cloete, having compelled the girl to track her mother's footsteps, came upon the marauder sitting upon a hillock on the side of a river with a little child in her lap. The Dutchman ordered his Hottentot servant to shoot the woman, but the fellow refused, fearing to injure the child. His master then approached his victim, who held her hands over her eyes, and shot her through the head. In the course of an appeal, Cloete's Dutch advocate persisted that his client was justified in killing with impunity such a ' useless monster' as a Hottentot girl-'a creature not worthy to tread the earth; an animal in the shape of a person.' With crimes like these upon the record can we wonder that the justices and magistrates of the Crown were determined to enforce the law throughout the frontier districts?

Let us now return to the case which was to exert such a lasting influence upon the relations of the English and Dutch inhabitants of the Cape Colony. A farmer of Graaff Reinet, named Frederik Bezuidenhout, who was charged with gross cruelty to a Hottentot servant, had refused to appear before the local Court, the assessors of which were his own countrymen. As he was known to be of a violent and lawless disposition, and had openly threatened to shoot any process-server, no

attempt was made to compel his attendance. When the justices came round on circuit the matter was reported to them and they gave directions that a warrant should be served upon the accused. The steps that followed are most inaccurately described by writers like Mr. Statham, who fail to bring out the point, which is mentioned by Dr. Theal, that, before recourse was had to the military assistance sanctioned by the Court, several applications were made to the local field-cornets to afford protection to the officer in the usual way by the presence of armed burghers.* The cornets, however, evaded their duty, and the soldiers were called in. These were a detachment of the Cape Regiment-Hottentots who had been trained to arms, like our own Indian sepoys, under the old Dutch Company, and kept on foot under English officers by the British Government. The discipline and efficiency of these 'Pandours' were admirable, but Dr. Theal frequently deplores their employment against the Dutch rebels, although he has no objection whatever to their employment in 1795 and 1806 against the British. Bezuidenhout himself was known to be supported by a band of Kaffirs, and he was actually accompanied by two armed Hottentots. The trio opened fire upon the soldiers, and after a desperate resistance the Dutchman was shot by a sergeant in self-defence. His funeral was made the occasion for an antiBritish agitation. The farmers met and swore to expel the tyrants.' Assistance was sought from the Kaffirs, who wisely held aloof. The rebels were pursued by the troops and loyal burghers and surrendered after a skirmish. Jan Bezuidenhout, the ringleader, offered the same fierce resistance that had cost his brother's life. This is how Dr. Theal has described his martyrdom':

'He was an illiterate frontier farmer . . who knew nothing of refinement after the English town pattern. His code of honour, too, was in some respects different from that of modern Englishmen, but it contained at least one principle common to the noblest minds in all sections of the race to which he belonged-to die rather than do that which is degrading. And for him it would have been unutterably degrading to have surrendered to the Pandours. Instead of doing so he fired at them.' ('History,' iii, 193.)

The poor Pandours, who only did their duty, are not commemorated in this eloquent fashion. A single sentence is enough for them, and that a short one: One Hottentot was killed.'

6

Six of the prisoners were condemned to be hanged, and the rest to suffer various terms of imprisonment. These sentences