The Cape of Good Hope and foreign contacts 1735-1755

1985

ISBN O 86981 305 6

This is a picture of the Cape of Good Hope in the middle years of its history as a small segment of the Dutch East India Company's vast trading empire. It makes no attempt to tell the whole story of the years 1735-1755 and looks only in passing at such internal events as the expansion of the frontier, clashes between settlers and the indigenous Khoisan, and the emergent economic and social pattern of a colonial society. It sees the Cape rather in what was then regarded as its major role: a welcome port of call for passing ships, providing needed supplies for long and arduous voyages and refreshment and relaxation for seafarers. And in this the emphasis is not upon the Dutch themselves, but upon the foreigners from east and west with whom they came into contact and who gave the township on Table Bay - the future city of Cape Town – a cosmopolitan and international atmosphere it has never lost. The timbers of these wooden ships have long since rotted and the men who sailed in them are no more. But the Cape Sea route remains as important today as it was in the era of the great national trading monopolies which brought the riches of the east to the homes and tables of the west and in turn profoundly influenced the Asian societies with which they came into contact. I am greatly in the debt of archivists and librarians in many lands for their generous assistance in helping me to prepare this picture of the Cape and its shipping in the 18th century. I also take the opportunity of offering my sincere thanks to the University of South Africa for providing me with the leave facilities and travelling expenses which made it possible for me to carry out extensive research in Europe and to the Human Sciences Research Council for financial assistance in completing my study of the relevant South African material. It should be added that the views expressed in these pages are my own and do not reflect those of any sponsoring body. The text requires no special elucidation. The spelling of Christian names has generally been modernized in order to bring a degree of uniformity to the great variety of the period, even among people of the same nationality. Ships, which loom large in these pages, have normally been given the names they bear in the documents of the times: Leijden for Leiden, for example, and Ki¢benhavn for K¢benhavn. The variations in the contemporary spelling of Danmark (Denmark) in the names of ships have been arbitrarily simplified by choosing the not uncommon form "Dannemark" and using it in all cases, as in Kongen af Dannemark, Dronningen af Dannemark and so on. Quotations reflect the idiosyncracies of the writers and the standard of the age. In order to maintain consistency all dates are given in the so-called "New Style" and dates before September 17 52 in such British sources as ships' logs have been adjusted to reflect the Gregorian Calendar which did not come into use in the British world until that time. New Year's Day is taken as I January and not, as in England before 1752, 25 March.

Contents

List of illustrations............ vii

Preface............... ix

Introduction ………...1

CHAPTER ONE

The Danes at the Cape …….14

CHAPTER TWO

French commerce . . .. 33.

CHAPTER THREE

The London company: captains, crews and voyages.... 53

CHAPTER FOUR

British East Indiamen and the Cape......76

CHAPTER FIVE

The Dutch and foreign contacts, East and West …… 98

CHAPTER SIX

Cape shipping and the war at sea …… 115

Conclusion …… 144

List of sources ……149

Index to foreign callers, 1735-1755 ……

General Index …… 168