SIR,

STATE OF THE CAPE OF GOOD HOPE IN 1825.

BY A COLONIST.

No. I.

To the Editor of the Oriental Herald.

Cape of Good Hope, May 15, 1826. OBSERVING that considerable notice has been taken by your able Journal of the affairs of this long-neglected colony, I am induced to send you the annexed papers; in the hope of exciting, through your pages, that serious attention in England to our condition, without which we can scarcely expect to obtain any adequate remedy for our grievances. The exposure which I am about to lay before you of the practical system of Government at the Cape requires minute details and illustrations, which may perhaps occupy more space than you can conveniently spare; but I am convinced you will not hesitate to make some sacrifice of conveniency for the sake of the important objects such an exposure may contribute to attain, not alone for South Africa, but for other remote and ill-regulated dependencies of the empire.

To enable your readers to judge of the opportunities possessed by the writer for acquiring correct information, and to bring at once under their view the nature of the topics intended more particularly to be discussed,-I may here notice that I have been for upwards of ten years a constant resident in the Cape colony ;that much of my time has been spent in the interior, and especially in the Eastern districts, both before and since the arrival of the British Emigrants in 1820; that, being long settled here as a colonist myself, I have both seen distinctly and felt severely the sinister operation of the established system of misgovernment; and that the character and condition of the English settlers-of the DutchAfrican Boors-and of the enthralled Hottentots, have fallen equally under my close and constant inspection. My information, thus acquired, I propose to throw into a series of articles in the following order:

1st. A brief sketch of the system of Cape Government, illustrated more particularly in its practical operation, by a detailed view of the actual administration of some of the interior districts, where it is least under the control of public opinion.

2d. Remarks on the Courts of Circuit, and their utter inefficiency as a check upon the oppression, corruption, and multifarious abuses of the provincial functionaries.

3d. Character and condition of Dutch-African colonists,-of the Hottentots and slaves, and of the English settlers.

4th. State of the Country Towns,-of the Missionary Instituand of general Education.

tions, 5th. districts.

Remarks on the Commercial Resources of the Eastern

The above topics, though they by no means embrace a complete survey of the system of administration in all its branches, will yet enable me, I conceive, to give the reader a pretty clear idea of the way in which it works, and of its blighting influence on the prosperity of the community. The title I have adopted, though perhaps somewhat too comprehensive for the ground I mean to occupy, may yet be considered sufficiently appropriate, inasmuch as this plain statement of facts has been in some degree called forth by the necessity of counteracting many most erroneous views and fallacious representations, lately laid before the English public in a work entitled State of the Cape of Good Hope in 1822, by a Civil Servant of the Colony. This work is well written; and the author, (who holds a high situation in the colony, and is well known to have recently been one of Lord Charles Somerset's confidential advisers,) from the ready access he had to official documents, has been enabled to bring forward much important and valuable matter. Being, moreover, a very intelligent man, and naturally of liberal sentiments, his work is not devoid of many judicious remarks, and affords occasionally some startling glimpses of the despotic constitution of the Government. But, notwithstanding its pretensions to liberality and candour, (or rather the more on that account,) the work of the Civil Servant' is calculated completely to mislead the public in regard to the actual condition of the colony, as well as the character of the administration. Of the management of the country districts the author probably knew but little, having never visited the interior in person; and on that subject he may have been led astray by the fallacious representations of individuals interested in cloking all the enormous abuses of the districts. But even this apology cannot be admitted for misrepresentations not less objectionable, upon subjects where his own observations and experience must have been ample and intimate. The points on which I am prepared to impugn this 'Civil Servant's' evidence will be reverted to when the topics which bring me into collision with him come under review,

It may be proper further to premise of the following strictures, that they were drawn up in the early part of 1825, and afford a true picture of the state of the interior districts up to that period. Since that time the investigations of the Commissioners of Inquiry have begun to operate in checking some of the most glaring abuses, and in deterring the higher functionaries from such gross acts of oppression as were previously common. A Council and a Lieutenant-Governor have, moreover, been appointed from home. The former, indeed, as at present constituted, is little more than a mere

shadow; but the appointment of a lieutenant-governor is a measure of unquestionable utility, and the selection of the individual appears to have been regulated by a real, though rather tardy, anxiety on the part of ministers to promote the welfare of the colony.

The home Government, however, if they are indeed determined to apply at length an effectual remedy to the abuses that have corroded the very vitals of this settlement, must go systematically and thoroughly to work. They must not be content with mere emollients or with salving over a few of the sores that have become most rankling and offensive. The removal of a few incapable or intolerable functionaries, the recal even of Lord Charles Somerset,will go but a little way to cure our inveterate evils. The political constitution of this deeply-distempered colony must (if I may so extend the metaphor) be thoroughly salivated, its regimen reversed, and its natural energies restored to free and healthy exercise, before the virus which has pervaded the entire system can be expelled.

That such will be the course pursued by the home Government, when fully informed of the real state of things, I will not allow myself to doubt. Nor can I readily admit a doubt that the respectable Commissioners of Inquiry deputed to investigate our grievances (and who have already been occupied nearly three years in this intricate and important task) will eventually transmit home such a Report as the nation has a right to expect from acute, impartial, and upright men. Nevertheless, my confident reliance upon the talents and principles of these gentlemen does not incline me to suppress the result of my own observations. Ten years' experience under the colonial system may not indeed qualify me to estimate correctly the merits of many important questions which must necessarily form part of their Report; but such experience may, I humbly conceive, enable me to explain distinctly matters that have "come home to my own bosom and business," and in this way to corroborate, elucidate, or correct, the more hurried observations of men in other respects my superiors.

But be this as it may, I am desirous that my countrymen in England should clearly see how the colonists themselves feel under the Government which has been permitted to grind them into the dust; and having here finally fixed my own lot and that of my children, I would not willingly have hereafter to reproach myself with having allowed the present favourable crisis to pass away, without lending my aid, however feeble, to render manifest the urgent necessity for an immediate and effectual reformation of the Cape Government.

A. COLONIST.

SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT.

The Cape of Good Hope, under its present system of Government, may be more aptly compared to a great military encampment than regarded as a country governed by civil law. The legislative and executive powers are placed in the hands of one man, who delegates what portion of authority he pleases to the different officers under him. These again hold under their unqualified control the inferior functionaries, and the inhabitants in general. The Governor may be considered as a General invested with full power, and responsible only to those who appointed him. The Landdrosts are the officers of divisions, who owe their promotion to the favour of their chief, and hold their authority at his pleasure. The Heemraden, Veld-Commandants and Veld-Cornets, are the subalterns, recommended to their appointments through the favour of their landdrost, and summarily superseded or cashiered if they venture to oppose his will. The people are the common soldiers; and one word of murmur against any act of any one in office is direct mutiny

in them.

Stability in office depends altogether upon influence with those above-in no degree upon the affection or respect of those below. The Governor, so long as his interest with the home administration remains unshaken, may defy with impunity the murmurs of the people, or even the hostility of the most formidable of the dependent functionaries. His own account of the condition of the colony, and the conduct of his Government, is alone attended to. Any one daring to accuse him is speedily crushed or got rid of. He is not merely the representative of majesty, but he claims powers and privileges which the King of England never dreamt of pretending to. Any difference from him in opinion he considers disloyalty; any question of the extent of his power is sedition; any opposition to its unlimited exercise is rebellion.

The pretensions of a Cape Governor may even be carried farther than this. The following is a curious and recent instance: Soon after the arrival of the Commissioners of Inquiry, Mr. Heatlie, an English farmer, near Cape Town, went to their office to complain of the treatment he had received from Lord C. Somerset in certain transactions that he had had with his Excellency about the purchase of horses, covering of mares, &c. &c. After his interview with the Commissioners, Heatlie, in premature exultation, swore, in the hearing of Captain Hare, his Excellency's Aide-de-Camp, that, unless a stallion he had recently purchased from Lord Charles, and which had proved to be an inveterate crib-biter, was instantly taken back, he would return to his Majesty's Commissioners and-" blacken his jockey-boots for him." The horse was speedily sent for; but the rash utterer of such a speech was loudly threatened with a criminal prosecution. Some of his Lordship's minions (such as the

horse-jobbers Proctor and Poggenpoel) gallopped round the country to get up evidence against Heatlie; and warned his friends that they would be considered as personal enemies of the Governor if they did not instantly break off all intercourse with a person so obnoxious. But all exertions proving ineffectual to muster up matter for a legal prosecution, his Excellency came forward himself and accused Heatlie to the Commissioners of Inquiry of insolence and disrespect to him his Majesty's Representative. The Commissioners condescended to examine evidence on the subject, and called Heatlie before them to answer for his misdemeanors; when, to his astonishment, he found the "head and front of his offending " (at least all that could be proved against him, after the most diligent research) amounted to this: That he had twice rode past Lord Charles Somerset on the race-course at Stellenbosch without lifting his hat to him! Heatlie pleaded "guilty" to this heinous charge; but, instead of expressing contrition, vowed, even in the presence of his Majesty's Commissioners, that, after what had passed between his Lordship and him, he would never again lift his hat to Lord Charles Somerset, as a private individual, so long as he had one to cover his head !—And so ended the affair; but had the Commissioners not been on the spot, can any one who has lived in the colony believe it would have so ended?

The supposed checks placed upon the despotic power of the Governor are mere blinds. Where his direct authority fails, his influence is omnipotent. Can a bench of justice be for a moment supposed independent, every member of which is removable at his pleasure, and all of whom enjoy or aspire to his continued patronage, in additional appointments to themselves or their families? But should the Governor even refrain from influencing their decisions, he can at any time reverse them at will in the Court of Appeals, where he is himself the sole judge.

The two following cases may be given as illustrations of the character of the Court of Justice at the Cape, and of the degree of impartiality to be expected from it, on occasions where the Governor is personally concerned.

Case of Buissinné.

The first is that of Mr. Buissinné, late Receiver of Land Revenue, and at the same time one of the members of the Court of Justice. This gentleman, after a series of pecuniary embarrassments, arising from extravagant speculations, &c., had yielded to the temptation (to which his office of Receiver unhappily exposed him) of making use of a portion of the public money under his trust; and on examination of the books of his office, a deficiency of 45,000 rix-dollars (3,3751. sterling) was discovered.'

Mr. Buissinné, on entering upon his office, had given the usual security to Government of 20,000 rix-dollars. When the examina