Our Place in History. 171 



misstatement that " the Huguenots came to the Cape." The few 

 hundreds who came to South Africa represent but a very small portion 

 of the great multitude of her sons whom France in her folly drove 

 into exile. We may find their descendants in Switzerland, in Holland, 

 in England, and in Ireland, where — after helping to win the battle 

 of the Boyne — many of them settled as leaders of the " Orange " 

 party. But especially the Huguenots settled in Brandenburg, where 

 they were eagerly welcomed by the Great Elector, and their descend- 

 ants contributed not a little to the success of the Prussian arms ; 

 so much so that in Moltke's army, which trwk Paris in 187 1, more 

 than three hundred officers claimed to have Huguenot blood in their 

 ^•eins. Well, indeed, did Erance learn to her cost that " like arrows 

 in the hand of a giant, so are the children of those cast out." 



Yet, if the number of Huguenots who came to South Africa 

 were small, we must not be led to underrate their importance. In 

 the first place, all religious exiles are to some degree picked men ; it 

 is much easier for the base or the vacillating to make a false and 

 insincere submission than to sacrifice home and fortune for the uncer- 

 tainties of a wandering existence. And, in the second place, we may 

 well doubt if Holland could ever have spared the population necessary 

 for the establishment of a real Colony in the place of the provision 

 station of the Cape. Lack of men prevented the Dutch from deriving 

 any advantages from the discoveries of Tasman and Van Diemen ; 

 Australia and New Zealand were left unoccupied for the use of the 

 English who should come a century later. Dutchmen, at this time, 

 were too valuable to be spared ; they were wanted as merchants, and 

 they were wanted as sailors. Even the garrisons of Dutch posses- 

 sions were filled by foreigners from all the nations of the North Sea 

 and the Baltic. 



When, therefore, Simon van der Stel objected to the coming 

 of the Huguenots as interfering with his hopes of a purely Dutch 

 settlement, he was fighting against forces which were too strong for 

 him. It has been, we may almost say, the general rule that the 

 new countries of the world are not to be peopled by unmixed popula- 

 tions from any one European nation. Australia and New Zealand 

 appear up to now to have been an exception ; but the United States, 

 Canada and South America, all represent exceedingly mixed popula- 

 tions, and there is every sign that South Africa is to follow suit. 

 Its future white inhabitants will not be Dutch, nor English, nor even 

 a combination of both : their numbers already include a daily 

 increasing proportion of Germans, Scandinavians and Jews, and it 

 is easy to anticipate circumstances that may accelerate the increased 

 proportion of these cosmopolitan elements. 



To understand the events of the Eighteenth Century at the Cape 

 we must again study the course "of European affairs. The victories 

 of Marlborough had placed all power in the hands of the Grand 

 Alliance. England and Holland, though no longer under one king, 

 were firmlv united in a defensive alliance, and, at sea, they com- 

 bined to give laws to the world. To the fleets of England on iheir 



