Page:George McCall Theal, History of South Africa since September 1795, Volume 1 (1908).pdf/378

344 any person could obtain paper money at the bank or at the various offices of the landdrosts throughout the country for any sum exceeding one hundred rixdollars in exchange for British silver at the same rate as that at which they were obliged to receive silver from their debtors. The final decision of the imperial authorities was then awaited with much anxiety. On the 13th of May 1826 the lords of the treasury pronounced against any alteration in the rate of exchange, and thus it remained at one shilling and six pence to the rixdollar. Many individuals lost heavily by it, but the colony gained by the security given to the paper money even at only three-eighths of its former nominal value.

In a short time the charge of three per cent upon treasury bills was reduced to one-half per cent, and notes to the amount of one million two hundred and thirty-seven thousand rixdollars were exchanged. This was equivalent to a loan of £92,775 without interest by Great Britain. The remaining paper in circulation was then gradually replaced by notes stamped in England, on which the value was marked in pounds sterling, and security was given by their being made exchangeable for treasury bills at par on presentation at the commissariat office.

In the regulations of the Batavian commissioner De Mist, a synod or general assembly of the clergymen and elders of the Dutch reformed church, to meet every second year, was contemplated; but after the conquest of the colony by the English the design was abandoned, though a general assembly was more than ever needed, owing to the severance of the connection with the classis of Amsterdam. In 1824, however, Lord Charles Somerset sanctioned the convocation of a synod, and on the 2nd of November of that year it met in Capetown.

At the opening there were twelve clergymen and ten elders present. The reverend Jan Christoffel Berrange, minister of Swellendam from December 1815 to June 1817, and thereafter one of the ministers of Capetown, was chosen to be moderator. The reverend Meent Borcherds, of Stellenbosch, was appointed