Page:George McCall Theal, History of South Africa since September 1795, Volume 1 (1908).pdf/104

80 proved groundless without the slightest difficulty. One, that he had incited the Hottentots and Kaffirs to rob and murder the Europeans, was preposterous. Another, that he had applied district funds to his own purposes, was easily shown to be false, and in that respect no one could have been more scrupulous. And so with the other charges that were laid before the commission.

But there in that vast district called Graaff-Reinet were hordes of Kaffir intruders, who with their wild Hottentot allies were plundering the farmers in every direction. The government employed no force to keep them in order. That they should be driven back to their own country was the first wish of the white people, but Mr. Maynier maintained that this would be cruel even if it were possible. Such being the case, the farmers held the rough border law to be the next best course, the recognised law of the Kaffirs themselves, to make the clan responsible for thefts committed by its members, and to seize by force an equivalent for stolen cattle. Mr. Maynier would not permit this, and spoke and wrote of it as if it originated in a bloodthirsty desire to murder the innocent and take violent possession of their property. He permitted robbers caught in the act to be shot, but no others, as if it was possible to surprise one thief out of one hundred, and as if every individual in a kraal did not know of the thief's movements and participate in his booty. Then he promised them protection, and when they applied for it, he sent half a dozen pandours to their aid, the greatest insult he could offer them and the greatest mockery of their distress. Nothing whatever appeared of this in the list of accusations, though it was the real substance of the farmers' complaints.

So in June 1802 the commission acquitted Mr. Maynier of all the charges brought against him, and decided that he had conducted himself upon every occasion as an upright and honest man. While the investigation was pending, he had been suspended from acting as a member of the high court of justice; but upon his acquittal he was requested to resume that duty, and soon afterwards was awarded by General