Briefwisseling oor Kaapse sake 1778-1792

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Introduction
Translated by Prof. R.H. Pheiffer

The last quarter of the eighteenth century constitutes an exceptionally important period in South African history.

The VOC settlement at the Cape of Good Hope, since its foundation in 1652, had expanded considerably in extent and population and its importance as a victualling post and maritime station had grown enormously. An ever increasing number of ships of various nationalities were making use of Cape harbours, for replenishment with fresh water and fresh food supplies, for repairs to ships and the recuperation of their crews. The waning importance of the Netherlands Republic as a maritime power, and especially of the maritime strength of the VOC in Asia, underscored the importance of possessing the Cape as a ‘key to the East’ - an importance realised also by others, as evidenced by the race between a French and an English fleet in 1781 and the capture of the Cape by the English in 1795, to name only a few examples amongst many others.

The growth in colonist numbers (in 1778 there were 9 802 free burghers and 11 107 slaves) had already for generations led to a trek north and north-eastwards into the interior. This movement had from the very start been accompanied by difficulties and problems, but during the seventies of the eighteenth century these became all the more evident. The distance between the colony's government situated in Cape Town and the hunters and stock farmers living 40 to 50 days' journeys away, far in the interior near the Fish River or beyond the Sneeuwbergen, had become too great.

A regular exercise of authority over the interior was out of the question; rather than provide a remedy for this, the founding of the Graaff-Reinet district (1786) brought it out into the open: the frontier farmers and Company servants were no longer speaking the same language. After a long, troublesome prelude the differences led, around 1795, to resistance and rebellion.

Resistance by the native population against expansion by the colonists formed an essential element of the troubles in the border area. In the north, San (Bushmen) and whites were trying in a gruesome way to destroy one another. In the East migrating streams of Xhosa and nomad farmers clashed with each other resulting in more and more conflict around grazing land. The attempt by Governor Van Plettenberg in 1778 to designate the Fish River as a permanent frontier between the two

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groups was, under the circumstances, doomed to failure, as the First Frontier War was soon to demonstrate. Diverse groups, often of mixed descent, varying social structure and geographical origin, and variously designated (by different writers) as ‘Bosjesmans-Hottentotten’, Khoisan, Griquas, Gunuquebe, and so on, were also harassing each other, thereby complicating the already complex situation in the frontier area.

The mental divide between the frontier farmers and Company servants arose also from the fact that the colonists, adapting themselves to an environment far separated from Europe, had to a great extent become Afrikaners. In their way of life, thoughts and ideas, attitudes towards one another and others, in material culture and language they were more and more identifying themselves as a new nation. Even the colonists who had remained in Cape Town and its nearest environs were also undergoing this proces of alienation from their European origins. A society which can in many respects be described as typically colonial was flourishing there, halfway between Europe and the Cape interior. There, too, existed plentiful fuel for conflict with the representatives of the mother country's authority exercised by the VOC, especially when that same authority, in accordance with the VOC's nature as a company trading for profit, carried out an administrative and economic policy which in fact was irreconcilable with the aspirations and needs of the colonists. Social tensions of various kinds, often coinciding with the personal conflicts which may be expected in a relatively small community, were consequently far from unknown at the Cape. All this forms the background to the well-known Cape Patriots' movement of 1778 and the following years, which caused quite a stir at the Cape and also had repercussions in the Netherlands when the Patriots appealed to certain quarters over there.

There is certainly no dearth of material, neither in the Dutch and Cape archives, nor in the form of source publications, studies and writings, from which to study the many facets of the Cape history during the years between 1775 and 1795. Nevertheless I am of the opinion that the correspondence of Hendrik Swellengrebel Junior constitutes an important addition to all that material. Before setting out the value of this collection of letters, let us take a closer look at Hendrik Swellengrebel Jr and his correspondents.

Hendrik Swellengrebel Jr

Hendrik Swellengrebel Jr was born in Cape Town on 26 November 1734. He belonged to the third generation of Swellengrebels at the Cape. His grandfather, Johannes Balthasar Swellengrebel, the son of a German merchant, was born in 1671 in Moscow. He entered the service of the

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Dutch East India Company in 1692 and arrived at the Cape in 1697, where he rose to be a member of the Council of Policy. He married Johanna Cruse (1682-1713). Complaints from the Free Burghers to Commissioner Douglas led in 1716 to Swellengrebel being given the choice between selling his extensive land holdings in the Tijger Berg and along the Liesbeek River or relinquishing his Company office. He chose to do the latter and stayed on as Free Burgher at the Cape till his death in 1744.

At the time of his death his eldest son Hendrik, born in 1700, who had entered VOC service in 1713 as an assistant and had been nominated a member of the Council of Policy in 1724, had already served for five years as Governor of the Cape. One of Hendrik's sisters, Johanna Catharina, had married the Cape minister of religion, Rev. F. le Sueur; another sister, Elizabeth, had married Rijk Tulbagh, who succeeded Hendrik as Governor in 1751. A cousin, Sergius Swellengrebel, served as Secunde from 1750 to 1760.

Hendrik Swellengrebel had in 1727 married the surgeon's daughter Helena Wilhelmina ten Damme (1796-1746); Hendrik Swellengrebel Junior was the fifth of their eight children. Governor Swellengrebel sent his three eldest sons to the Netherlands at an early age (exact date unknown); Hendrik there lodged with a relative, the Rev. J. Schermers in Utrecht. The Governor himself, accompanied by three of his daughters and his youngest son, followed in 1751 after his retirement, having been promoted to the rank of Extraordinary member of the Council of India, and having lost his wife (1746). The ex-Governor settled on the estate Schoonoord which he had bought in the vicinity of Doorn, near Utrecht. When he died in 1760 Schoonoord was left to his son Hendrik. The latter had completed his studies in Law at the University of Utrecht in 1755. He had been admitted to the Bar, but no proof exists that he had a very active practice as an advocate. Hendrik Swellengrebel Jr was, however, a member of the ‘Domkapittel’, which membership his father had bought for him in 1752. Members of the Utrecht Chapters (of which there were five) enjoyed a number of privileges such as usufruct of Chapter properties (in so far as they had not been alienated in or since the Reformation), nominating some functionaries and electing some members of the States of Utrecht (the so-called ‘Geëligeerden’). Although the Chapters had been Protestantised and secularised during the sixteenth century and had thus changed their character completely, membership still afforded some prestige, authority and income. In 1767 Hendrik Swellengrebel Jr was even elected Dean of the Dom Chapter, a position held ad vitam, which, however, came to an end when the Chapters were abolished after the Batavian Revolution of 1795.

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Hendrik Swellengrebel hardly had a vigorous social career. Perhaps his health did not allow him much activity, perhaps his ambition was lacking, perhaps his political convictions (about which more will be said shortly) stood in the way. He led the life of a landed nobleman and a Regent of moderate provincial standing.

This is not to say that Hendrik Swellengrebel Jr showed no interest in public affairs, nor that he spent his days in idleness. Managing his possessions required time and attention. He had greenhouses where he cultivated all sorts of plants; and a good library. Apart from current affairs, he was specially interested in botany, ethnology and geography, while he appears to have had sound knowledge of and good insight into economics.

Swellengrebel died on 19 February 1803; his remains were laid to rest in the Janskerk in Utrecht, where also his father had been buried as well as his unmarried sister Johanna Engela, deceased some years earlier. Schoonoord passed into the hands of a brother-in-law, his library was sold, his gardener inherited his plants (on condition, typical of Swellengrebel, that he was not to attach the name Swellengrebel to any of them).

Swellengrebel's visit to the Cape of Good Hope

On 4 June 1775 the VOC ship Alkemade set sail from Texel, bound for Bengal via the Cape of Good Hope. Hendrik Swellengrebel was a passenger on board, on his way to visit what he usually called his ‘fatherland’. His stay at the Cape lasted from 17 February 1776 to 7 March 1777. He established relations with many Company servants and Free Burghers. In view of his descent and social status it would not have been difficult to establish such contacts. Moreover, his two Le Sueur cousins, of whom one was in charge of the warehouses (‘pakhuismeester’) and the other was a cashier, were able to obtain the necessary introductions for him, in so far as such were needed, for social contacts in the tiny Cape community were easily made, and it would be natural to assume that the Swellengrebels had maintained (by letter) some contact with South Africa after the departure of Hendrik Swellengrebel Senior in 1751.

Apart from making friends and acquaintances at the Cape, Swellengrebel also kept his eyes and ears open. The Journals of his travels through the Cape interior attest to his attentiveness and powers of observation, and to his interest in the way the affairs of the colony and its occupants were managed; yet this interest never deprived him of his scientific meticulousness and detachment.

Thrice during his sojourn at the Cape did Swellengrebel travel inland. A short excursion took him to Saldanha Bay and St. Helena Bay in July

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1776; in January 1777 he travelled to the Heerenlogement caves. Between those his most important journey took place, lasting from 10 September to 26 December 1776. This took him from Stellenbosch through the north of the colony, even across its borders, into what was then termed Caffer Land, returning along the east coast. These journeys, particularly his extensive inland trip, recorded for posterity in Swellengrebel's interesting Journals and the lovely drawings made by Johannes Schumacher, led to Hendrik Swellengrebel's historical reputation. Even during his own lifetime fantastic stories about his journeys were in circulation. The publication of the Journals in our century reduced Swellengrebel's adventures to more modest and more realistic proportions, but at the same time it confirmed his right to an honourable place amongst the most important travellers and describers of Africa of his day.

Thanks to the indefatigable publicist A. Hallema it is known that Hendrik Swellengrebel Jr retained his interest in the Cape after his return to the Netherlands in 1777. In the 1930's Hallema put in order the archives of the Swellengrebel family and there became acquainted with the writings left by Hendrik Swellengrebel Jr. This led him to publish corrections and addenda to Godée Molsbergen's edition (1932) of Swellengrebel's Journal of the major journey from September to December 1776 (which Godée knew from a manuscript in the Van Plettenberg collection), while he also published some other writings by Hendrik Swellengrebel Jr. Most interesting of course, was Hallema's edition of the water colours made by the Company soldier Johannes Schumacher, hired by Swellengrebel to illustrate his travel journals.

The nature and significance of Swellengrebel's interest in and concern with the Cape Colony after 1777 can be seen from the correspondence published in this volume. Not only does Swellengrebel's great interest in the welfare of the Cape become evident from these letters, but also his analysis, based on knowledge and insight, of the problem areas of that society, as well as his real efforts to contribute to a solution of those difficulties.

What moved Swellengrebel to undertake a journey to the Cape at his own cost, at a time when this was no small undertaking? Was it a desire to see his land of birth once again? Was he playing with the idea of settling there at some time or another? Or was he trying, by gaining some local experience, to improve his chances of attaining a post such as his father and uncle had held there? It is not clear. It is a fact that after his journey a number of people would have liked to see him in the office of Governor and that he himself was strongly interested in it.

Yet Swellengrebel was never appointed Governor or Commissioner of

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the Cape. This is not altogether surprising. The letters and essays published hereinafter make the reason clear.

Swellengrebel's interest touched upon many facets of life at the Cape. This is what makes his correspondence so attractive. Swellengrebel knew many people at the Cape and was interested in their weal or woe. Hendrik Cloete satisfied that interest by regularly sending bits of Cape news. His reports, sometimes resembling the ‘Personal’ columns of present day newspapers, at other times sounding like men gossiping over a glass of gin, nevertheless do have a certain importance: they reveal something of the personal relationships which were of essential importance in a time when politics were governed by factions (small groups held together by ties of a family, friendly or material nature). Sources like these are not to be despised when it comes to social history and the history of attitudes. But for Hendrik Swellengrebel Jr this information was of direct importance. He had become deeply interested in Cape politics, and started to play a part in them, a role which up to the present has remained practically unknown. This need not be surprising, because it was a role, in line with Swellengrebel's nature, intention and position, which was played in the background, behind the scenes, and therefore remained undocumented in the official archives.

Shortly after Swellengrebel's stay at the Cape certain disturbances developed there which came to be known as the Cape Patriot movement. In 1779 four representatives of the Cape malcontents arrived in the Netherlands to present their grievances to the Lords XVII concerning the situation at the Cape and especially the behaviour of the VOC's officials at the Cape. It now appears from his correspondence that Swellengrebel concerned himself with the matter. In collaboration with C. van der Oudermeulen, a wise and influential Amsterdam director of the VOC, he attempted to prevent the Memorial of the Cape Patriots being presented in public. Swellengrebel had grown up in the Regent milieu of the eighteenth century Dutch Republic and understood its peculiarities. He feared - and in the end was proved right - that public commotion over the situation at the Cape would displease the directors of the VOC and would give rise to the symptomatic reaction on their part of shielding one another and their servants. In view of the many sensitive aspects of the matter, Swellengrebel thought it better to deal with it in an informal way behind the scenes. His intervention failed, because the Cape representatives feared that Swellengrebel's strategy would lead to their cause being swept under the mat.

Although disappointed, Swellengrebel did not subsequently withdraw from Cape matters. He continued to act as advisor in Cape matters

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(whether asked or unasked), and repeatedly attempted to exert influence to steer the Cape in the only direction he thought wise. It is noteworthy that, without severing his bonds with the proponents of the status quo in Company circles, he did try to inform the Patriotic opposition at the time. That appears quite clearly, inter alia, from his contacts with the then well-known Patriotic journalist Van Irhoven van Dam; the correspondence with the influential politician from Holland, C. de Gijselaar, provides further examples. This is not surprising: Swellengrebel's friends came from the aristocratic wing of the Patriotic movement and he was very critical of the existing Stadhouder government. Politically he was clearly influenced by the then emergent ideals of the Enlightenment and realised that the socio-political constellation of the Netherlands Republic of his day, as well as the organisation and functioning of the VOC, needed to be adjusted in many respects. Typical, in this respect, are the discussions which he had with the Company advocate F.W. Boers about the position of the Free Burghers within the Company's empire, as well as his concern for in the fledgling United States of America. Typical, also, are the close relations maintained with the famous Guelders Patriot leader Van der Capellen van de Marsch. On the other hand one should not see Hendrik Swellengrebel as being too progressive and democratic. When, in 1784-1785, the Patriot movement in Utrecht took on a distinctly modern democratic character, Hendrik Swellengrebel was neither able nor willing to go along with it: he was, true enough, opposed to the patronage system of the Stadhouder government, he would have liked to extend influence to a wider segment of the population than only the aristocratic patrician top layer, he also considered it just that the rights of all citizens should be clearly set down and be protected against arbitrary action, but he remained a man of aristocratic stamp and conviction who expected nothing but disaster to result from sovereignty of the people and participation by the illiterate and impecunious masses in the administration of the land. For him government was and remained an art reserved for the top layer, albeit that these rulers would be obliged to recognize and respect the rights and interests of the rest of the population. His solution to many of the difficulties at the Cape also fitted into this vision. Arbitrary administrative action had to be curtailed there, and participation by a top layer of the Free Burghers had to be introduced. And especially in the economic field the interests of the Cape people deserved to be considered.

Hence Swellengrebel composed extensive analyses of the Cape's economy and warmly endorsed plans designed to stimulate that economy by introducing a greater measure of freedom of trade, by seeking wider

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markets, by taking into use harbours on the east coast. Hence, also, the fact that he was not disinclined to make himself available for a reorganisation of the Cape society in the above sense.

In 1783, when Cape affairs were once again in the limelight amongst the Directors, he thus intimated clearly to some of them that he was interested in the office of Governor of the Cape of Good Hope. Nor did he leave them in the dark about his views and opinions, as his letters and especially the imaginative ‘Consideratien omtrend de Caab’ (‘Considerations about the Cape’) illustrate. In the autumn of 1783 he even went to Amsterdam, ‘to be at hand’, should the Lords XVII, who were meeting at the time, need his advice. But he acknowledged: ‘I have little hope that anything good, in my opinion, will be carried out’. He did feel disappointed: ‘Since my return [from the Cape, in 1777] I had had some hope that I might be of service to my place of birth; but now I note more and more that it is a waste of time to think of any amendment being brought about. As long as the First Minister Advocate [F.W. Boers] remains at the helm, nothing can be done about it’. Boers, so Swellengrebel writes a little later, will dominate the meeting of the Lords XVII ‘and then the Colony will have to be sacrificed to the repute of his Cousin’ [the Cape fiscal W.C. Boers, against whom the most serious complaints of the Cape Patriots were directed]. Swellengrebel's hankering after the Governorship was so strong that he was even prepared to meet half-way those amongst the Directors who opposed the far-reaching changes he had in mind for the Cape: ‘The safest was, surely, first to design a thorough plan over here, but my friend V.d. O[udermeulen] so clearly showed me the impossibility hereof, owing to ignorance of the true state of the Colony, that, no matter how firmly I had decided beforehand not to allow myself to be employed before everything had been arranged here, I now intend to override that objection and to attempt, by giving a clear exposition of that state, to show more cogently the necessity of a change in direction, according to plans to be formulated for the purpose; provided I am authorised to take such measures, under provisional approval, as may be necessary to restore calm in the Colony. You would say that is grasping a red-hot poker; I acknowledge it, but do not see in what other manner I could be of any use. If a Favourite or a fortune-seeker were to be sent thither, everything there would get out of hand in a short while, and the Republic will run the risk of losing such an important colony. The best plan seems to me: that the State should take over the colony, station 3 to 4 000 men there together with a squadron of 8 to 10 ships to defend the Indian possessions, for which the Company then must pay out an annual sum, and that the Colonists should be allowed to

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transport their products hither in Company ships, in order to ensure that no trade was carried on in Indian goods, to their detriment. But into what phantasies am I not transported! For as little will come of one as of the other.’ Swellengrebel's suspicions and predictions were fully confirmed. In 1783 the Lords XVII took the fiscal Boers and the other servants at the Cape under their wing, gave the Cape Patriots practically no redress for their grievances and nominated ‘a Favourite or an adventurer’, colonel C.J. van de Graaff as Governor - Swellengrebel rightly suspected that the Prince of Orange himself had influenced this choice.

In spite of renewed disappointment at having been overlooked in this manner, Swellengrebel even now did not cease to take an interest in Cape affairs. He even, on request, gave advice on Van de Graaff's Instruction. A few years later (1789), when it had become clear to Lords XVII that Van de Graaff was unable to solve the problems at the Cape, Swellengrebel was once again prepared to co-operate. Nothing came of any proposal, however, to send him out as Commissioner.

Meanwhile Swellengrebel had attempted in other ways to have his ideas about what he considered to be a remedy for the problems at the Cape put into practice. The request of 17 February 1784, submitted to Governor Van Plettenberg in the name of a group of prominent Cape colonists, is the best example of this. This request, in which a plea is made for wider economic opportunities for the Cape Free Burghers, is an important document because of the socio-political ideas contained therein, though they should not be taken without qualification to represent typical Cape views of the time. The papers in the Swellengrebel Archives provide proof that in fact the request was not written by the signatories, but was drawn up by Hendrik Swellengrebel.

More or less in line with the 1784 request is Swellengrebel's participation in the attempts by Hendrik Cloete in the late 1780's to obtain better trading terms for his Constantia wines.

Swellengrebel's correspondence is important not only for the documentation it provides of certain facets of events at the time of the Cape Patriots, but also because it contains such important analyses of the period. Swellengrebel's analyses excel in clarity and incisiveness and are of fundamental value for an understanding of the Cape body politic of the late eighteenth century. Particularly sharp was his exposition of the discrepancies in the Cape ‘constitution’ of the time. He analysed meticulously the conflict between the mercantilism imposed by the VOC and the economic and social interests of the Cape colonists. He pointed out the results unequivocally: friction between the Company servants and the Cape farmers, and the enforced migration into the interior, since in the absence of

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other possibilities stock farming was the only means of livelihood. That this had to lead to conflicts with the non-white native peoples as well as to a fundamental dissatisfaction with the Company (with all the concomitant international political risks), appeared to Swellengrebel to be indisputable.

The important part economics played in Swellengrebel's way of thinking about the Cape, required him to be and to remain master of his subject-matters. During his stay and his journeys at the Cape in 1776-1777 he gave a great deal of attention to this aspect: his Journals are full of observations about the state of agriculture and stock-raising in the regions visited by him, and he never omitted noting whether any site was suitable, by virtue of its situation, accessibility, soil types and water supply, to enlarge further the extent of land available for agriculture and livestock farming. To this must be added the information about Cape farming which Swellengrebel requested and received from Cloete.

If Swellengrebel's correspondence is an important source for the political, economic and social history of the Cape in the last quarter of the eighteenth century, it is no less so for the history of the attitudes and culture of the period in question. Most of Swellengrebel's correspondents are historic persons, well-known from official sources of the period. In these private letters we learn to know them also in a less official light. In personal documents of this kind writers tend to let themselves go more than in official letters. Fiscal W.C. Boers, for instance, displays in his letters certain facets of character and behaviour which many foreign visitors had praised, such as hospitality, good humour, interest in science and helpfulness towards friends of his own class and education - these are characteristics which in the accusations of the Patriots obviously receive much less attention than his hautaine contempt for the common folk, his harsh and grasping application of the law, and his conservative attitude towards the rights of the Free Burghers. Another personality whom we learn to know somewhat better from his letters is Governor Van Plettenberg, generally characterised by historians as benevolent but weak. This is not to say that he has to be declared an efficient and forceful administrator on the grounds of these letters, but his erudition, his Enlightened views on behaviour towards non-whites and, arising therefrom, his condemnation of the mentality displayed by frontier farmers contribute to a more diversified picture of his personality.

Van Plettenberg's views on the mentality of the frontier farmers are illustrated by a number of remarks scattered throughout this volume of correspondence. Swellengrebel himself had made some observations on this score during his journeys through the Cape interior. Cloete's ‘Nou-

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velles’ contain many small examples illustrating the attitudes and behaviour of Cape people towards non-whites, be they Khoisan, Xhosa or slaves. One also thinks of the Hartog case, the conviction of the Swanepoel brothers for slaying a Hottentot woman and of the Van Zijls on counts of plundering expeditions, while Cloete's tone when he mentions the escapades of Willem van Wyk (‘Willem Namaqua’), David Malan and Van der Linde deserve attention, as well as, for that matter, the way in which he and others generally write about their slaves or about Hottentots and Bushmen. For the history of the racial attitudes of the Afrikaner these are all noteworthy details.

Swellengrebel was also interested in ethnology: in his time this could hardly be otherwise; all that was distant, strange and exotic had a tremendous attraction for the European intelligentsia. Swellengrebel's Journals contain interesting remarks on these matters, as well as on the ways in which he set about to collect such material. However much his interest was bound to the times in which he lived, the scientific precision with which he measured a small black boy is as commendable as the tact with which he handled the situation. It was, after all, not always easy to obtain the information required. ‘It was only with very great difficulty that I was able to verify that the Caffers have been circumcised.... The Bastard Caffers with the Gonacquas could not be persuaded to have themselves examined, since they were scoffed at by the other Hottentots because of their circumcision’ he noted later. Swellengrebel was certainly no admirer of the attitude which the frontier farmers displayed towards the non-whites, but neither did he go along with all those contemporaries of his who portrayed the life of the noble savages as the summit of humanity and civilization. Rather than allow himself to be caught up in the ideas of Rousseau, he preferred to confine himself to information which could be confirmed. Hence also his insistence that his questions about the lifestyle of Hottentots and Xhosa should be answered by experienced frontier farmers such as Jacob Kock and David Schalk van der Merwe.

Their answers, like those of Cloete himself, satisfied Swellengrebel's requirements: they contained nothing that was not based on first hand experience. For us these answers have extra significance in that they illustrate how little these people knew in actual fact about the non-whites living around them. On the other hand they do contain interesting data on, for example, the degree of acculturation of the Khoikhoi to white modes of life and thought.

Much of the content of the correspondence included in this volume is, of course, ‘petit histoire’: small incidents from Cape social life, concrete

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examples of what is already known in broad outline, accessory details characterising people and situations, glosses on events known from elsewhere. These marginal notes do have significance as primary and illustrative material even for those who consider that the historian should concentrate in the first place on the analysis of structures, processes and constellations of the past, quite apart from the charm of being able to catch life so to speak red-handed in these personal utterances. Moreover, there is amongst them a good deal of information which is valuable as complementary or corrective contributions to existing historical writing. Apart from Swellengrebel's earlier mentioned concern with the requests of Cloete and the Cape Patriots, this also holds good, for example, in respect of a remark about the first merino sheep at the Cape, confirmation of the co-operation between colonel Gordon and Johannes Schumacher, and diverse supplementary facts about Groot Constantia.

Not only the contents, but also the form of the correspondence in question is of note. Those writers born and bred at the Cape reveal in their language usage to what extent their spoken language had already developed away from the Dutch of the time. Even a properly educated man like Hendrik Cloete, who obviously strove to write Dutch, experiences difficulty in writing that language correctly. This is evidenced by his faulty verb forms, such as ‘ik en meer met mij hoopt’; ‘tot Zijn WelEds. gestrenge strek met grood lof’; ‘De Latijnen segt alle dingen heeft een omin’; ‘ik twyffelen geensints daaraan’ (all from no. XX). He is totally unsure of the Dutch verb system, and in that respect his spoken language was quite probably close to Afrikaans. Further examples may be found in the answers by D.S. van der Merwe and Jacob Kock.

Most of the letters published here fortunately contain clear indications about writer and addressee. It strikes one that Swellengrebel's circle of correspondents was quite wide: directors of the VOC (Van der Oudermeulen, Huydecoper van Maarseveen), of the WIC (Deutz), Dutch Regents (De Gijselaar) and journalists (Van Irhoven van Dam); high-ranking Company servants at the Cape (Governor Van Plettenberg, fiscal Boers, cashier Le Sueur, colonel Gilquin), Free Burghers of diverse stature (Cloete, Van der Merwe, Kock).

Judging from the existing letters, Hendrik Cloete was Swellengrebel's most constant correspondent. Cloete came from one of the oldest Free Burgher families at the Cape and was related to many of the families who constituted what one might call the western Cape rural aristocracy of the time: the Van der Bijls, Laubsers, Morkels and Eksteens, for instance. When Swellengrebel first met him in 1776 he was fifty years of age, esteemed by the neighbourhood, settled at Nooitgedacht near Stellenbosch.

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A few years later he managed to buy the famous Groot Constantia, the farm laid out by Governor Van der Stel at the beginning of the century, and well-known in Europe for the much appreciated red and white Constantia wines. For decades Constantia had already been a favourite place to visit for many people; everyone who stayed at the Cape for any length of time, paid a visit there. In his letters Cloete himself makes mention of some of those visitors. Thanks to those letters his own personality is also defined more sharply. Hendrik Cloete was clearly a well educated, enterprising and self-assured man who regarded the world around him with interest and a well developed sense of humour. A landed nobleman, who knew how to appreciate the joys of life, he was nevertheless above all a businessman. Apart from Groot Constantia he owned a number of farms in various parts of the Cape.

Cloete was cut out for his role as news gatherer for Swellengrebel. He had contacts among the Company servants as well as the Free Burghers, not only the gentleman farmers of the Western Cape area where he himself resided, but also those far inland. As a result his comments cover practically all Cape events: the deliberations in the administrative bodies of the Company as well as the daily coming and going of the frontier farmers; the town life of Stellenbosch as well as marriages and deaths occurring in Cape Town. The relationships among the leading Company servants reached his ears just as easily as the squabbles in the church council of Drakenstein and the escapades of the farmers in the Hantam. This is not to say that he was able or dared to report on everything equally extensively - he was especially careful in reporting what he knew about the Company elite in Cape Town: the confidentiality of letters in those days was not well assured and even a man such as Cloete had to reckon with possible retaliation.

This applied all the more in view of the fact that Cloete, like every one else, did not have friends only. Not everybody who knocked at the door of Groot Constantia was welcomed with open arms and certainly not all Cape free burghers were pleased with the distance which Cloete kept between himself and the Cape Patriot movement. Various remarks in his letters about the leaders of the movement provide proof that the members of the Council of Policy had been right when they noted in 1786 that Cloete and his friends ‘had always displayed their dislike of the behaviour and the line of action’ of the Patriots. The result was, according to Cloete himself in 1789, that ‘when my family and I constantly contradicted the Patriots, we did not dare venture into their presence any longer, indeed, for years we had to steer clear of the public auctions in the outlying districts because of this’. It seems to have been mainly social

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differences that induced Cloete to take up a rather cool stance towards the Patriot movement: the Cape people recognized amongst themselves sundry differences in rank and class. A note by Hendrik Swellengrebel, largely based on information provided by Cloete, stated quite plainly: ‘the malcontents at the Cape are not the leading colonists, but people of a lesser type’. According to Swellengrebel rich people such as Cloete had enough reserves to sustain themselves without much difficulty in times of economic malaise; they were less frequently the victims of the harsh actions of the independent fiscal than their poorer fellow-citizens, and ‘the top-ranking ones are mostly connected by marriage or otherwise to the Company's Servants, in whose hands the government rests’.

Cloete as entrepreneur we learn to know best from the papers dealing with his acquisition and management of Constantia. The Swellengrebel Archives contain a collection of documents all of which concern his campaign against the Company to obtain more favourable conditions of sale for his wines. Together they constitute an interesting piece of economic history, but they are too specialised and voluminous to be included in this volume; I hope to publish them separately. What I do include here, however, is a number of letters and documents about Cloete's purchase of Groot Constantia, its inventory, and his remarks about improvements which he effected to the homestead and the lands. These contain many new details which have remained unknown up to the present, in spite of all the attention that has been given to Groot Constantia. The inventory of the effects which Cloete acquired together with the dwelling and the lands, gives a good indication of the furnishing of such a well to do eighteenth century household. On the other hand this inventory is unfortunately formulated so succinctly that it is, for instance, not possible to identify the paintings included in it. None of the furniture or other pieces at present in Groot Constantia belonged to the household effects in Cloete's time.

The writer of letters nos. VI, XI, XVI and XX

It is no easy task to identify the writers of the signed or incomplete letters handed down as nos. VI, XI, XVI and XX. Comparison of the handwriting yields only the possibility that VI and XX might have been written by the same hand. Unfortunately almost all the letters to which there are references are also missing, particularly Swellengrebel's answers to these four letters, which makes it even more difficult to follow the line of thought.

A comparison of the contents of VI and XVI, however, soon leads to the conclusion that they derive from the same sender. For in XVI we

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read: ‘I remember very well that Your Hon. enquired about the sad things brewing ... and that I added that I was somebody who had elected to lead a rather quiet life since my return to the principal town, ... and in truth had not noticed any dissatisfaction under the citizens, but was taken by surprise when the first lampoon made its appearance ...’ This can easily be reconciled with the beginning of letter VI. A second passage from no. XVI similarly refers to no. VI: ‘I mentioned to Your Hon. at the commencement of the discord that the malcontent section had not made the best choice of representatives ...’ This resembles the remark in no. VI about the Representatives of the Cape Patriots (of whom Jacob van Reenen and Heyns are mentioned by name), whom the writer ‘would certainly not have chosen as my advocates’.

Now who is the author of numbers VI and XVI, whom we shall for the present call A? It is to be noted that Swellengrebel in no. XVII (which is a draft of a letter to J.J. le Sueur of 17.9.1780) seems to be answering letter no. XVI point for point. Swellengrebel begins by contrasting his views on the Buytendag case with those held by A. Then he says something about communications received from a good friend (unfortunately not identifiable) before dealing with the controversy about trading rights and trading interests of the Free Burghers and VOC servants, on which A had also dwelt. To my mind the two letters quite clearly tie up with one another when Swellengrebel writes about the Free Burgher's daughter who marries an assistant and who can then put a little private trade to good use. A, in fact, had written that the Free Burghers knew quite well that when their daughter was asked in marriage by a VOC servant they could not exist on the official income, but that there was always the prospect that the young couple could start a small private trade or set up a lodging-house. Also the passage in no. XVII in which Swellengrebel expresses his disagreement with the method followed by the Cape Patriots (i.e. bypassing the local government and approaching the Lords XVII directly) might very well refer to XVI.

A close scrutiny will reveal that Swellengrebel also deals with the contents of letter XI in no. XVII. This holds good for the argument just set out, but becomes quite clear in the two passages from XI and XVII where mention is made of the Cape Patriots' desire for more civic representation in the Council of Justice or even for the institution of a ‘Schepenbank’ (Aldermen's Bench) and the concomitant enhancement of rank.

Even Swellengrebel's remarks in XVII about the excesses at the October 1779 parade might very well agree with what is said about it in XI.

Another argument in favour of a common author for VI, XI and XVI is the complaint occurring in al three about the laziness of the colonists.

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To my mind it seems very probable that Swellengrebel on receiving XVI immediately sat down to write a reply (no. XVII), referring to XI in the process, to which he had obviously not yet sent a reply (XVI does not mention any reply received to XI, only to VI).

In no. XVI the writer makes certain remarks which could serve as a key to his identification. He lives in Cape Town, holds office and mentions ‘my return hither, that was in 1758’; he also writes that he ‘has no personal interests in commerce’, and continues: ‘I confess that as a servant of the Company I am not indifferent to the welfare of my fellow servants, but as one born here, as a member of government, and indeed, related to a large section of the citizenry through my marriage’ he also had the welfare of the Free Burghers at heart.

In no. XI, too, there are some remarks which the author seems to be making about his own person. He notes that he would not like to be Chairman of a Schepenbank which had amongst its members people like the Patriot leader B.J. Artoys. Also his reference to the church dispute in Drakenstein could provide a clue.

Does all the above now enable us to identify the sender of numbers VI, XI and XVI with the adressee of no. XVII, namely J.J. le Sueur? And does what we know about his life and works correspond with what the letters seem to be saying about their author? Jacobus Johannes le Sueur was born at the Cape in 1734 as the son of one of the local ministers of religion, ds. F. le Sueur and his wife Johanna Catharina Swellengrebel; he was in other words a first cousin to Hendrik Swellengrebel. He went to the Netherlands as a young man, completed his law studies in Utrecht in 1757 with a thesis Dissertatio de iure indemnitatis. Subsequently he returned to the Cape and entered the service of the VOC in 1759 as a soldier. In view of his parentage and education he advanced rapidly: after having been in the employ of the Council of Justice for some time he was appointed landdrost of Stellenbosch in 1763, became cashier of the Company in Cape Town in 1769 and was promoted to ‘Keldermeester’ (Cellarer) in 1778; at that time he was also a member of the Council of Policy. In 1763 he married Hillegonda de Wet.

To my mind the above leads to one unassailable conclusion: J.J. le Sueur is the author of no. XVI: its links with no. XVII as well as the details about the author's record which can be discerned in no. XVI indicate such. In addition there is the strong resemblance in handwriting which this letter has, as far as a layman can judge, with a letter which Le Sueur signed personally in 1802.

Nor do I have any difficulty in accepting that letter no. VI derives from Le Sueur. In view of the contents, as we have seen above, the same

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might even apply to no. XI; but the difference in handwriting pleads against this so that I hesitate to assign the authorship of the latter to Le Sueur with complete certainty. As far as no. XX is concerned the similarity in handwriting with letters in fact written by Le Sueur seems to warrant the conclusion that this letter also derives from him; the contents do not provide any clear arguments pro or contra.

It has already been pointed out that the 44 letters and essays by and to Hendrik Swellengrebel only constitute a selection from the contents of the Swellengrebel Archives. In those archives which document several centuries of a family history there are four portfolios containing papers deriving from Hendrik Swellengrebel Jr. The following summary gives some idea of their contents.

Portfolio A IV 7 contains the manuscripts of Swellengrebel's travel journals and a manuscript with H.J. Wikar's ‘Relaas’ presumably written by Wikar himself.

Portfolio A IV 8 contains a number of papers referring to Swellengrebel's journey to the Cape and his stay there in 1775-1777, then some Notes by Swellengrebel on a work by Le Vaillant, a copy of the Memorie of 1779 and the Nadere Memorie of the Cape Patriots, Hendrik Cloete's requests and accompanying papers in connection with the Constantia wines, and correspondence from the years 1776-1788, the greater part of which follows hereunder (numbers I-XXXI).

Portfolio A IV 9 contains various papers and letters from the years 1786-1802. Some of them have been included in this volume (numbers XXXI-XXXVI, XXXVIII, XXXIX and XLIV). In addition some material from the years 1786-1793 in connection with Cloete's requests concerning the Constantia wines will be found in the present publication, as well as some papers about the measures which the Lords XVII took in regard to the Cape economy and extensive excerpts from the memoranda by the Amsterdam governor G. Titsingh and the Cape fiscal J.N.S. van Lynden. Finally this portfolio contains copies of an article on Swellengrebel's journey through the Cape interior in 1776 plus some correspondence pertaining thereto, an excerpt from a letter from the well-known missionary J.T. van der Kemp and J.J. le Sueur's letter of 10 April 1802, to which reference was made above.

The fourth volume of papers deriving from Hendrik Swellengrebel Jr. (portfolio A IV 10) contains some remaining correspondence (including our numbers XXXVII, XXXIX-XLIII), information about various South African plants, a Hottentot-Nederlands word-list, all kinds of notes by Swellengrebel (including his ‘Propositions and Considerations’ about the Cape and papers pertaining to the request of 17 February 1784), copies

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of Governor Van Plettenberg's ‘Considerations’ from 1781 and divers documents relating to the activities of the Commissioners General Nederburgh and Frijkenius at the Cape in 1790-1791.

Finally, a fifth portfolio also contains documents of Hendrik Swellengrebel's (such as an inventory made of his estate after his death), but these have no bearing on Cape matters. And then there is of course the portfolio with the drawings by Johannes Schumacher and another with prints and drawings containing, inter alia, a map of Swellengrebel's journey through the Cape interior and the drawing of Hendrik Cloete which has been included as illustration in this book. Neither amongst the drawings nor amongst the paintings in the Swellengrebel collection can a portrait of Hendrik Swellengrebel Jr himself be found. More is the pity.

As can be seen from the foregoing this volume contains a good deal but not all of the papers in the Swellengrebel Archives which deal with the Cape. Nothing has been included that is readily available from elsewhere. As has been indicated, only a small selection of papers having to do with Groot Constantia has been included; a few other documents, which seem to be of little historical importance, have been left out. Hendrik Swellengrebel's travel journals, in nature and size not reconcilable with this volume, have been published separately.

Unfortunately it has not proved possible to complement Swellengrebel's correspondence from other archives. Here and there some details were discovered which add to the picture of the life and works of Hendrik Swellengrebel Jr as it emerges from the papers in his estate or which were useful in annotating his letters.

The letters included in this volume have all been transcribed literally and accurately; at the most one or two abbreviations were filled out or the punctuation modernised for the sake of intelligibility. Sections of letters not dealing with Cape matters as well as captions and signatures were generally omitted or were summarised. A small number of the documents included in this book were published by A. Hallema in the 1930's in practically forgotten numbers of journals. The texts were checked anew by myself and corrected where necessary; where possible I made grateful use of Hallema's footnotes.

I am much indebted to Mr. N.J.A.C. Swellengrebel, retired sea captain in Hilversum, a descendant of one of Hendrik Swellengrebel's brothers and present owner of the Swellengrebel Archives. Many years ago he initiated this publication, entrusted the preparation of the material to me with much goodwill, and continued to encourage the work with great interest and even greater patience.

I am much indebted also to various librarians and archivists, especially

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those in the Archives in Cape Town.

I consider it a great distinction that the Council of the Van Riebeeck Society has decided to publish this work in its renowned series.

G.J. Schutte