I have given these facts of more than a hundred years ago to show for
how long a time the traditions of the usefulness and lawfulness of
Slavery had been engrained in the minds of the Dutch settlers. We ought
not, perhaps, to censure too severely the Boer proclivities in favour of
that ancient institution, nor to be surprised if it should be a work of
time, accompanied with severe Providential chastisement, to uproot that
fixed idea from the minds of the present generation, of Boer descent.
The sin of enslaving their fellow-men may perhaps be reckoned, for them,
among the "sins of ignorance." Nevertheless, the Recording Angel has not
failed through all these generations to mark the woes of the slaves; and
the historic vengeance, which sooner or later infallibly follows a
century or centuries of the violation of the Divine Law and of human
rights, will not be postponed or averted even by a late repentance on
the part of the transgressors. It is striking to note how often in
history the sore judgment of oppressors has fallen (in this world), not
on those who were first in the guilt, but on their successors, just as
they were entering on an amended course of "ceasing to do evil and
learning to do well."

In 1795, Cape Town was formally ceded by the Prince of Orange to Great
Britain, as an incident of the great war with France, for which, six
million pounds sterling was paid by Great Britain to Holland. British
supremacy was formally recognized in this part of South Africa by a
Convention signed in 1814, which was confirmed by the Treaty of Paris in
1815.

British rule for some thirty years after 1806 was perforce despotic, but
for the most part, with some exceptions, it was a benevolent despotism.
"They had the difficult task of controlling a straggling white