l
the emigrants, established a magistracy at Swellendam in 1745 and
another at Graaff Reinet in 1786. The Gamtoos river had been declared,
c. 1740, the eastern frontier of the colony, but it was soon passed. In
1780, however, the Dutch, to avoid collision with the warlike Kaffir
tribes advancing south and west from east central Africa, agreed with
them to make the Great Fish river the common boundary. In 1795 the
heavily taxed burghers of the frontier districts, who were afforded no
protection against the Kaffirs, expelled the officials of the East India
Company, and set up independent governments at Swellendam and Graaff
Reinet. In the same year, Holland having fallen under the revolutionary
government of France, a British force under General Sir James Craig was
sent to Cape Town to secure the colony for the prince of Orange--a
refugee in England--against the French. The governor of Cape Town at
first refused to obey the instructions from the prince, but on the
British proceeding to take forcible possession he capitulated.[3] His
action was hastened by the fact that the Hottentots, deserting their
former masters, flocked to the British standard. The burghers of Graaff
Reinet did not surrender until a force had been sent against them, while
in 1799 and again in 1801 they rose in revolt. In February 1803, as a
result of the peace of Amiens, the colony was handed over to the
Batavian Republic, which introduced many needful reforms, as had the
British during their eight years' rule. (One of the first acts of
General Craig had been to abolish torture in the administration of
justice.) War having again broken out, a British force was once more
sent to the Cape. After an engagement (Jan. 1806) on the shores of Table
Bay the Dutch garrison of Cape Castle surrendered to the British under
Sir David Baird, and in 1814 the colony was ceded outright by Holland to
the British crown. At that time the colony extended to the line of
mountains guarding the vast central plateau, then called Bushmansland,
and had an area of about 120,000 sq. m. and a population of some 60,000,
of whom 27,000 were whites, 17,000 free Hottentots and the rest slaves.
These slaves were mostly imported negroes and Malays. Their introduction
was the chief cause leading the white settlers to despise manual labour.

_The First and Second Kaffir Wars_.--At the time of the cession to Great
Britain the first of several wars with the Kaffirs had been fought. (The
num