Our Place in Hisiorv. 173 



of Voltaire and Rousseau was the exponent of the new ideas whicft 

 affected every corner of the civilised world, and which — among other 

 effects — changed the whole course of South African history. Whether 

 we look at the village Republics of Swellendam and Graaff-Reinet, 

 with their " National Assemblies," in imitation of Paris, or at the 

 early missionaries. Van der Kemp and Philip, with their assertion 

 of the innate equality of black and white men, or at the work of 

 Clarkson and Wilberforce in opposing slavery — we cannot escape 

 from the permeating influence of Rousseau. Sometimes Rousseau was 

 followed intentionally by democrats, sometimes he was follow-ed 

 unconsciously by philanthropists, sometimes his thoughts found their 

 way into the mouths of preachers who would have repudiated such 

 origin with uncompromising vehemence : but everywhere it w^as 

 Rousseau. '' The Law of Nature," " the Rights of Man." " the 

 Social Contract" — all the noble sentiments or idle catch-words which, 

 for good or for evil, spread throughout the world — all came, in the 

 first place, from Rousseau. 



This, then, is a strange and puzzling fact : Fairbairn, Philip, 

 Lord Glenelg, and all the missionaries and philanthropists who 

 hounded the Republican Voortrekkers out of the Colony, derived 

 their ideas from the same ultimate influence in human thought which 

 inspired these Voortrekkers to assert their right to independence and 

 self-government. , 



To turn from the world of ideas to that of material forces, we 

 find that South African history demands a thorough knowledge of 

 the chief events in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars. In those 

 wars the combatants varied, every nation in Europe fighting in turn, 

 and sometimes all nations fighting at once ; but, with all these 

 changes, the two protagonists never laid aside their parts. On the 

 one side was always England, and on the other France. Between 

 these nations it w'as a life and death srtuggle ; and into that struggle 

 South Africa was drawn by the overmastering force of events. Other 

 Dutch Colonies were occupied by the British during the war, and 

 the most valuable, from a commercial standpoint, were restored when 

 peace at last came back to Europe ; but the Cape was a vital 

 strategic position, and on its fate depended that of India, and, 

 perhaps, even of Australia. 



The first occupation bv the British was welcome in many respects 

 as terminating the unpopular rule of the company ; but the second 

 has often been spoken of with regret by Colonial writers, for it put 

 an end to the very excellent rule established by the Batavian Republic. 

 Vet this regret is based on a strange ignorance of European history. 

 AVithin a few months of the landing of Sir David Baird, the Batavian 

 Republic itself had ceased to exist in Holland. It had subsisted 

 on the support of France, and Napoleon, with his strange dynastic 

 mania, determined to carve out a kingdom for his brother Louis. 

 Thus it was only by a few months that the Cape escaped the rule 

 of the Bonapartes, the most blighting despotism recorded in modern 

 historv. 



