Page:George McCall Theal, History of South Africa since September 1795, Volume 1 (1908).pdf/66

42 as they had successfully defied the Dutch East India Company they thought they could do the same with the new government at a time when the display of its power was not very imposing. What had they to gain by obedience, they asked themselves. In a district over thirty thousand square miles (76,800 square kilometres) in extent there was but one magistrate and one clergyman. These with a secretary and a messenger were the only paid servants of the government, excepting the twelve dragoons at the drostdy. They had to pay taxes, they said, but what did they receive in return? Certainly not protection, for in the constant struggle for existence against the Bushmen along their northern border and the Kaffir intruders in the Zuurveld and Bruintjes Hoogte they were left unaided except by a little ammunition when the authorities chose to furnish it. As they had to protect themselves they would do so in their own way, and would not pay taxes for the bare privilege of trading with Capetown, nor would they submit longer to be ruled by men placed over them by an unsympathetic government and according to laws that they had no voice in framing. Such was the position taken up by this little band of insurgents, who formed a small minority even in their own district.

The arrest and banishment without trial of Commandant Petrus Jacobus Delport for evading the governor's order to take an oath of allegiance to the king of England had added greatly to the spirit of unrest in the eastern part of the district of Swellendam. It was generally regarded by the farmers as an act of tyranny, and it certainly had not the effect that Lord Macartney intended, of overawing them all. Those who in 1795 had risen against the Dutch East India Company now professed to feel that they were not safe, but that under some pretext or another they too might be torn from their families and sent out of the country. The more daring spirits among them were therefore in a mood for revolt, and were in full sympathy and close communication with their reckless countrymen farther eastward.