1812. 
MUTINOUS CONDUCT OF VAN ROYE. 
467 
the task of following her husband in all his migrations and wander- 
ings, and of bearing all the hardships of a savage life. 
When these men had returned to their waggons, my mind, 
which had very unexpectedly received some recreation by their 
arrival, was again put into a state of irritation and uneasiness by dis- 
covering that Van Roye manifested a determination not only to re- 
sist my authority by disobedience, but even to act in open defiance of 
it. Notwithstanding my having yesterday appointed him to attend 
the oxen and horses, and forbiddeti Andries being sent with them 
again, he had ordered him and Philip, for he often assumed over the 
other Hottentots, an insolent command which he supposed to belong 
to him in right of his being a ' Christemensch,' to take the cattle to 
pasture ; while he absented himself during the day till about three 
in the afternoon, at which time he came home, giving me to under- 
stand that he had been the whole time with the horses, and had 
brought them to the river, where he had left them to be driven 
to town by the herdsman. 
At this time I took no notice of his conduct, but in the evening, 
I sent by Philip my positive orders that he, and no one else, should 
attend the cattle on the following day ; and warned him against dis- 
obedience, as I was resolved not to allow it to pass a second time ; 
but would most surely convince him, in the severest manner, that 
any attempt of that kind, would be in vain. 
Could I, three days before this, have believed that these two 
men were so little the better for the instructions they had received, 
that they would thus have acted in breach of all moral and religious 
precepts, or could I have foreseen the difficulties, and the dilemma, 
to which their defiance of my authority would have reduced me, I 
should rather have chosen patiently to support them as worthless lazy 
encumbrances on my journey, than incur the risk of so dangerous 
an example for the rest of my men, as that of a disposition approach- 
ing towards mutiny. But as the affair had, by steps which could not be 
averted, proceeded thus far, there was now no choice remaining, and 
it was evident that, if my expedition was to be preserved from a fatal 
termination, there were no means left for my adoption, but that most 
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