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15 The French at Saldanha Bay 1666 (& 1670, 1671)
(Plate 20 on pages 104/5)
This is best dealt with by combining the Dutch accounts in the DR and other documents, with de Rennefort's ‘Histoire des Indes Orientales’ (which in spite of its name deals with little but his own travels). The translation here is from the Leiden edition of 1688, ‘suivant la copie de Paris’ of the same year. He sailed from La Rochelle on March 14, 1666, with the fleet of ten ships taking the Marquis de Mondevergue out as Viceroy of Madagascar.
He writes:
At midnight of December 15/16 land was sighted by moonlight. We stood away from it during the night and re-approached it in the morning, recognising it for the ‘Cape de False’, which is on the continent of Africa. On the seventeenth the fleet entered Table Bay.
The Dutch guard the entry to the land of Table Bay with a Fort* of four bastions, of earth, fraises* and palisades, surrounded by moats full of seawater [?]. The front is a wall of dressed stone below and of bricks above, with six guns covering the roadstead. There are 12 rooms in this Fortress as dwellings for the Governor, the chief Merchant, and the garrison*, which was 400 men strong. Near it they were at work on another fort of five bastions of dressed stone, which being completed the first is to be razed. Around it were twenty mediocre houses also occupied by the Dutch.
Table Bay is a circular hill [sic] four leagues in diameter, the country very lovely and very fertile. The anchorage seems safe, and French ships anchored in 6 fathoms would have no fear of being wrecked. At times there come from this Table furious squalls called Raphales, which greatly trouble the ships then there.
His account is somewhat confused. By the Diaries:
dr 31/8 ... A ship in sight: with the aid of a telescope we made out that she wore a blue [?] French flag*.
1/9. The vessel arrives. The Captain and Mate come ashore, reporting that she was a French ship of the fleet of the Hon. Caron, named St Jan. His Honour had left Rochelle for Madagascar with that fleet on March 15 [sic] last, being ten large and small vessels under the command of the Viceroy Montevergne [sic], and this small vessel manned by 60 men had lost touch with the fleet during the night of July 15 last ...
30/10. (St Jean still there, now called ‘hooker*’; but the name is wrong, unless there were two of the same name - see below.)
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10/12. [Large ship entered flying a white flag*, but forced by adverse wind to anchor under Robben Island.]
11/12 [A Skipper sent in a shallop* to help her in.]
12/12 She arrived at the roads, being the long-awaited Admiral* of the French East-Indies fleet, St Jan, 300 men, having on board Mons: de Monde-Vergne. She had ... become separated from her companions near Tristan d'Acunha, so that these may now be expected daily. The Commandeur sent the Merchant* Sieur Lacus on board soon after her arrival, to congratulate H.E. on his safe arrival and welcome him heartily, with the offer of good accommodation if he would be pleased to land, but on his return he reported that the offer had been politely declined.
13/12 Letter from the Commandeur to the Viceroy, sent with a sheep, milk and eggs: ‘I was greatly pleased to learn that Y.E. had arrived in good health ... Had I known of it earlier I should have greeted Y.E. with more guns ... You will therefore be pleased to pardon us, and to be assured that, if you should land and accept our hospitality, all such attentions and honour will be paid you as lie in our power ... I am prepared to pay you a visit on board in person, and greet you personally, should you allow me to do so ... in a manner consonant with the respect due to my office and to my Lords and Masters. I therefore send my Secretary [De Yonge] to you as the bearer of this letter ...’ About 3 o'clock in the afternoon the Secretary returned, reporting that H.E. had accepted all the Cape products with great pleasure, but had postponed his landing, and had also declined to accept our visit ... [Text of reply given.]
14/12. The Dispensier*, Sieur Boccaert, was today sent on board the French ship to provide H.E. with news and fresh garden-produce, and to express to him the wish of the Commandeur to welcome him personally on board this day. This request was politely accepted, and thereupon the Commandeur and some of his officials went on board that afternoon; and, after the ceremonies had been performed and a banquet partaken of, returned ashore that evening with a salute of some guns.
(It was an expensive banquet: it cost van Quaelberg his post - in the letter from the Lords XVII dismissing him from the Company's service this visit to a foreign ship was given as the chief motive for their action.)
Everyone was very, very polite - the French were then ‘benevolently neutral’ towards Denmark and Holland against England. But some Frenchmen talked indiscreetly, and on December 15 a party of seven men was sent overland to Saldanha Bay ‘since it was understood that the French intended to take possession of that Bay’.
Resolutions 16/12. Since we have understood, not only from various rumours heard from private persons serving in the French ship St. Jan under the command of the Viceroy of Madagascar ... but also (among other things) in conversation with his deputies, that they had orders from their King to erect a fort in Saldanha Bay if they found this suitable, and to take possession of the place. This we verbally opposed, making it known to them that the place was in our possession, and daily frequented in the Name of the Company by our freemen, and maintained by them according to the Commission given
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them, and that for this reason they [the French] could not seize the place without infringing on the rights of the Hon. Coy. But seeing that we had there no residence nor fort, therefore doubt was felt whether we could sustain in Europe [by process of law] our rights of possession, and it was therefore unanimously resolved ... that the seven men already set aboard the Bruijt should be disembarked and strengthened with four soldiers, and Serjeant Wederholt in command, to send them thither, by land because of the contrary wind. The Serjeant was further ordered to remain with 5 men at the watering-place [‘waterplaats’], and there make it look as if he were about to throw up a fort, for which purpose gear and victuals for 6 to 8 weeks should follow with the [Saldanha Bay] freemen's boat the Bruijt; and the remaining six men to be divided two by two on the Jutten, Marcus and Schapen Islands lying in the said Bay; without in the least interfering with what the French might do there, merely letting us know here from time to time of their doings, so that we may act accordingly.
The Bruijt (or Bruyd or Bruydegom elsewhere) left on that same day, December 16, arriving at Saldanha Bay next day according to the report below [DR 22/1/1667], overtaking a French vessel on the way, which arrived on December 18. As de Rennefort writes:
Monsieur de Mondevergue sent Messieurs de Lopis, his nephew; Vimont, Lieutenant of the Admiral; La Bonté, Lieutenant of the Company of Monsieur Bechon; with a Dutchman of Table Bay and two Flemish pilots, in the little vessel Saumacque to reconnoitre the Bay of Sardaigne, which lies to the North of Table Bay. They made a very exact report, which however is too long to reproduce here in extenso. It states that there is a good anchorage; abundance of fish, wild beasts and game; that seal-hunting could give oil and skins. They said nothing of dealings with the natives, having seen none during their stay. Also that it is difficult to take in water there, the best being six leagues from the anchorage, near which there is only one small spring, always muddy. They set up a pillar on the shore with the Royal Arms and the inscription ‘Ludovico Decimo-quarto regnante, Franciscus Lopius Montevergius in Orientem Legatus posuit anno 1666’. They noted that there was no timber other than for firewood. They saw the tracks of many lions and rhinoceroses near the springs, and many roebucks. They found five islands in the bay, on two of which they considered that it would be possible to grow some plants and feed cattle, if water could be dug out: the others barren, where only cormorants could live, or other birds living on fish and seaweed.
All this was unknown to the Commandeur until January 22, when he received the report below: meanwhile on December 17 four more French ships arrived, next day two more, the following day three, and on December 21 ‘the last of the French fleet’ according to the DR. It is odd that Saumacque, of de Rennefort's account, is not mentioned; but even without her twelve are named, not ten as in de Rennefort. Twelve warships: what could the Commandeur have done even had he known of the ‘annexation’ of Saldanha Bay? and semi-allies at that? What he might well have left undone was the welcome to the Viceroy:
dr 28/12 ... Advice received that H.E. ... intends to land tomorrow, whereupon all preparations were made for his reception ...
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29/12 ... Sieur Lacus was sent in the shallop* to escort H.E. to land ... After about two hours he arrived at the Jetty* with H.E., who was there greeted and welcomed by the Commandeur and his officials, and escorted from thence into the Fort by the armed burgers and the soldiers, with the firing of cannon and muskets, after which H.E. visited the Company's Garden, while the midday meal was in preparation. This being ended, H.E. drove out into the country with his suite, the day being passed greatly to his satisfaction.
De Rennefort puts it more picturesquely:
Monsieur de Mondevergue, on account of some ceremony regarding the salutes at his arrival, with which he had reason to be dissatisfied, delayed going ashore until the 29th of December, when he landed with the two Directors, to the sound of the cannon of all the French ships, and of two Dutch ones which were in the roads. The Commandant received him as he landed from his shallop*, and conducted him between two ranks of soldiers to the apartment of Madame his wife, who received them in the outer hall. She conducted them into another, better ornamented, where they partook of dinner, neatly and abundantly served, with such rejoicings that the large cannons which had not until now ever been fired from this fort, were now shot off to the healths of the King and the States General, so that not a windowpane was spared by the thunder of their discharge. After dinner Monsieur de Mondevergue, the Dutch Commandant and his wife, and the two French Directors took carriage, the rest being given horses; and with an escort of Dutch cavalry went two leagues inland to a house belonging to the Dutch East-India Company, very well built and very sumptuously furnished [Rondebosch]. In a large garden were all sorts of herbs and vegetables, among others cabbages of a fantastic size, as also two olive-trees heavily laden with fruit, pretty fine reinette apple-trees, bonchrétien pear-trees, orange-trees, walnuts, chestnuts, and all sorts of other fruit- or flower-bearing trees. Two arpents* of vines were enclosed here, of which the grapes would be fully ripe in another three weeks. Some bunches of them were already eatable, and their wine, according to those who had drunk it, was similar to that of the Rhine. Around this house and as far as the sea there were Dutch dwellings in the form of colonies, which were well established, and the colonists held their lands from the Company with no charge other than a small tax, and the obligation to sell their wheat and other produce to the
Company at its fixed price, and to buy from it whatever they should require. They were forbidden to deal in money with the natives of the country, so that the coinage should not be wasted; and it is unnecessary to use coins, since they give a sheep or a cow for a piece of tobacco.
De Rennefort has nothing further except a few superficial remarks on the Hottentots, better given elsewhere. To return to the Diary:
dr 30/12. Very early this morning H.E. suddenly decided to return on board, fearing lest in the afternoon it might again blow as strongly as yesterday, so that he would be forced to remain on shore. [Or was it some apprehension of the results of the ‘annexation’, of which he now had advice, Saumaque having left there on December 27?]. He
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accordingly departed with the same ceremonies as had been done on his arrival.
5/1/1667 [Complimentary letters received from the Viceroy and other senior officials, texts given.]
7/1. The French fleet departs, saluting the Fort with five guns, which salute was returned....
22/1. The Corporal and six men sent out on the 15th December last ... return, delivering a Journal kept by the [Saldanha Bay] freeman Jochum Marquaert during his stay in that Bay. [The Serjeant and the other four men are not mentioned here.] It is as follows: Anno 1666, December the 16th: we left the Fort this day, and passed Robben Island the following day. On reaching the open sea we saw that the French vessel [Saumaque] was ahead of us, about 3 miles* to the West: we therefore did our best to overtake her, reaching the Saldanha Bay at 10 o'clock in the evening. On the morning of the 18th we found the Frenchman in our wake, steering for the watering-place, whither we also hastened as fast as we were able; but fearing that she might arrive before us and land men before we could do so, we made for the nearest land, from there sending one of our men thither armed with a musket, with orders that, should the French come there and ask what he was doing, he should reply that the six of them had been stationed there on behalf of the Company, to keep watch against the Hottentoos, lest they should spoil the water. We understood however that Bartholomeus Borms [the ‘Dutchman of Table Bay’ mentioned by de Rennefort] had informed them otherwise: he at once went inland with them, to give them information of everything. We therefore decided to go with them, in order to see what they intended doing. Guided by him they reached a large valley, to investigate what good soil might be found there, and for what it might serve; but learning that there was no water there in Summer, they decided to look for another place the next day. This they did, returning to the aforesaid watering-place where they set up near the water a large post, to which was affixed a leaden coat-of-arms of the King of France, with some words below it which we were unable to understand. They then returned on board until the 19th, when they again landed with ten or twelve men, and
Bartholomeus showed them the locations of all the springs and valleys, large and small, which much pleased them, although they were somewhat displeased to see that we had already affixed the arms of the Company to a post there. This same evening the Corporal Aerent Vliet and his men safely arrived at the place ordered to them, and on the 20th they were distributed two by two on the different islands according to the Instructions, on each of which the arms of the Company were set up. When the French discovered this, they had no more to say than that the Company held the best spots. We remained at the watering-place from the 21st to the 23rd, awaiting the Serjeant and the other soldiers, but since these did not arrive, and seeing the Frenchmen again coming ashore, we also went to the beach to ask their Captain what they meant by the erection of the post there, to which he replied that it was a mark of the Viceroy, and that Mons: Quaelbergh had authorised it. We therefore made sail, awaiting a wind for our return to the Cape. On the 27th the vessel again left the Bay, and we would have wished to send a
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letter by her, but hoping for a favourable wind we did not do so. On the 28th two [French] hookers* arrived. We hoisted our flag at the stern, and their captains came aboard us to ask what vessel we were. We replied, Of the Company. Further, What we were doing here? To which we replied that we were always cruising in that Bay. They enquired, Whether no fresh water was to be had there? We replied, Yes, but not much. Asked whether we could not show it to them we did so, and the following day they landed on the Island [? which], where they shot hundreds of gulls for eating, and caught much fish, which they salted and dried. On the 29th we sent to the Corporal on Schapen Island the bread, pork, tobacco and brandy intended for the others [? the Serjeant's party], since we could not know for how long they might have to remain there without receiving any more food. On January the 2nd another French vessel arrived, a frigate*, having caught many fish: they also went ashore to shoot. On the 12th the three Frenchmen left. On the 13th we took in water for ourselves and the men on the islands: at the Schapen Island we were told that a man had been on the land near them with a letter, which, since he could not deliver it, he had hidden away for us to find. We sent off our boat for this, and found it to be an order to the Corporal to return to the Cape with his men. On the 14th and 15th the wind was too strong to allow us to collect the men from the various islands, and on the 16th it was a dead calm. On the 17th we sailed to the Jutten Island to take off the two soldiers there, and thence to the Marques [sic] Island, and then to the Schapen Island. Having collected all the men we landed them at the watering-place, from whence they could proceed by land to the Cape ...
The whole affair was of course reported to Holland, and by their letter of November 20, 1667, the Lords XVII ordered the removal of the French marker; and on July 7, 1668 the DR records that it had been ‘cut down and burned’. No post was maintained there until the orders of the XVII dated December 19, 1668 were received; and complied with in April of the following year.
The reason given by Holland for this re-occupation was a fear of further French action. It was a justified fear:
dr 23/8/1670 ... arrives the French ship l'Europe, 80 men, having left Rochelle on April 10 last with eight other ships bound for the Indies. Although her officers had been instructed to make a rendezvous at Saldaigne bay and refresh there, they had been prevented from this by adverse winds and forced to put in here, greatly lacking water, and requested the Hon. Commandeur to be allowed to take in what they needed and to purchase the necessary refreshings, which was granted on the usual conditions ... the fleet was commanded by Mons: de la Haye, proceeding to Madagascar as successor there to the Viceroy, to wit Mons: de Mondaverne.... We accordingly sent a letter overland to Saldaigne bay, advising the commander there of these facts, and instructing him to send here without delay all the cattle grazing on the islands and on the mainland near him. [Letter transcribed.]
26/8. [Letter from Saldanha Bay:] on August 22nd there came to anchor here the French frigate* St Jean bajou, 50 guns and 350 men. She anchored between the Meuwen
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Island and Salamander Bay and sent a shallop* to the said island for refreshings, the men shooting four of the sheep I had placed there not long ago, thinking them to be wild ones. The next day, the 23rd a Lieutenant landed, and politely asked for permission to take in water, which was as politely granted. Thereupon the Superintendent [Corporal Calmbach] invited him and those with him into the house, and treated them to a glass of brandy.... He set one man, together with a Hottentoo, on the Schapen Island, to prevent the French from landing there. [Apologies for the 4 sheep killed, the men ‘not having in all their lives previously seen such sheep’.]
28/8 ... [Letter from Calmbach:] On the 25th three more French vessels came to anchor under the command of Mons: Durell as Admiral* in the Navarre. The shallop* of the St Jean brought on shore a Lieutenant, who in the name of his Captain requested that they be allowed to wash their linen on shore, which I could not refuse.... I have sent away 19 oxen and 52 sheep with some Hottentoos to be looked after at their kraals. During the night 40 Hottentoos, armed with assegays, bows and arrows, came here to offer their services to help me, should the French desire to take possession: they still lie hidden in the bushes, with their arms, waiting to see what the French may intend. These latter have landed all their sick near the place of their anchorage.... [dated August 26].
31/8. [Polite complaint by the Captain of L'Europe of exorbitant charges by one of our freemen for lodging their sick: the burghers requested by the Commandeur not to make such. She sailed for Saldanha Bay on September 5.]
1/9. [Letter from Saldanha Bay: unable to send the animals to the Fort as ordered, the Hottentots being alarmed by so many armed men; but had managed to get 122 sheep to the mainland from Schapen and 15 from Meeuwen Islands, the French having now killed 11 there.] Last Wednesday [August 27] the Admiral landed with some 200 men, going to the upper watering-place and the valleys around it....
Next day the French frigate* La Juille (DR spelling) came to Table Bay to get refreshing for the fleet, and was allowed (after a first refusal) to buy from the freemen, ‘since there seemed to be no other way to get these hungry foreigners from off our necks’. It did not dislodge them: on September 10 two of the officers brought a message from the Captain, ‘delivering it with as much vehemence as if in a declaration of war’, protesting against the way he had been treated, and especially that the fort had not replied to his salute on arrival - by an oversight, the Council said.
dr 20/9. [Arrival of oxen and sheep from Saldanha Bay, with a letter from Calmbach:] ... fully seven tents had been pitched by the French, full of sick, while the others went around everywhere prying [‘doorsnuffelen’] and were busied in digging wells for water, which however seemed to give little or no results. Two of the ships had gone to the St Helena Bay to get fresh water from the Berg River.
27/9 ... found good by the Council to call in the present commander at Saldanha Bay ... the Serjeant Jeronimus Cruse sent there ...
2/10 ... this Serjeant however unexpectedly arrived here this afternoon in great agitation of mind, and informed us that on September 30 ... a party of fully-armed
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French soldiers had landed and drawn up in order of battle around the Hon. Company's post there; that some French officials had come to him ... saying that they had been instructed to haul down the Hon. Company's flag and hoist their own in its place, and therefore ordered him and his men not to interfere, on pain of hanging. A little later they took away the Company's flag and hoisted a French one, with the firing of a salute and the cry of Vive le Roy de France! then taking him by force to the Admiral's ship, where ... with severe threats asked how and by whose orders the pole erected there by orders of their King had been destroyed. To this the said Serjeant replied that he knew nothing at all of this; and when they saw that their attempts were fruitless ... they again released him, and gave him a letter ... to the Merchant Sr. de Cretser, to be sent by one of our men [it complained of the destruction of ‘the arms and tokens of His Majesty’, of difficulties put in the way of the purchase of cattle, of unduly scanty salutes, and of the inciting of ten soldiers to desert] ... as also they took him ashore again ... but with the precaution that when he landed they made him hold up his trousers with his hands, so that he could not run so easily. When they reached the Company's post it was already almost dark, and this the said Serjeant took advantage of, under the pretext of seeing to some of his men getting into hiding in the bushes, and at nightfall escaped ... He reported also that the other 4 men of the post were taken prisoners, as also some of our freemen lying in the bay to fish, their vessel being made fast to the Admiral's ship....’
They were released later, the soldiers arriving on October 8, the fishermen on October 9, reporting that the French had sailed the day before, and bringing another letter of protest from de la Haye to de Cretser.
There was not much that the Council could do about it. A protest was prepared and sent overland to de la Haye, repairs were hastened to the dilapidated old square Fort* and to the one usable bastion of the new one, and shore-patrols were ordered. The protest arrived at the Bay too late: a copy was prepared and given to a French merchant-ship then in Table Bay, to be taken on to Madagascar for de la Haye there.
Surprisingly, nothing was immediately done about the new French marker. It was not until February 16 next year, 1671, that the Council decided to remove it, taking as a precedent the orders given regarding the previous case, in the letter of November 20, 1667 mentioned above; and it was not until March 27 that a Corporal and three men were sent to do this, to set up a V.O.C. marker, and to occupy the post. (By an odd coincidence the French Maria arrived just then, anchoring in Table Bay on March 7 with de Mondevergue himself on board, on his way home after handing over to de la Haye; but there was no raking up of past incidents. On the contrary, he asked and was given leave to lodge on shore during his stay, and did so for a week, bidding us farewell ‘with great politeness,’ the DR records.)
The expected war with the French broke out next year, 1672, but Saldanha Bay was not affected, and no further French claims were ever made there. So ended a curious episode which might have had far-reaching consequences. |
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