SOUTHERN AFRICA. 
Ill 
had, from certain intelligence of the coming of the adual land- 
roft, fortunately withheld his anfwer to the faid letter ; for, in 
the prefent ftate of affairs, he would not have dared to give a 
refufal : to all the meafures of the leading party he had been 
compelled to affent : he had in fadt been forced by the anar- 
chifts, by way of giving a kind of fandion to their proceed- 
ings, to take upon him the title of an office, the duties of 
which he was neither qualified, nor indeed fuffered, to perform. 
The firft bufinefs, therefore, of the landroft, after his arrival 
at the Drofdy, was to ftop the preparations of the farmers for 
making war againft the Kaffers, by letting them know that it 
was his intention to pay a vifit to the chiefs of that nation, and 
to prevail on them, if poffible, to return quietly and peaceably 
into their own country beyond the fettled limits of the Great 
Fifli river. This, no doubt, was an unwelcome piece of intel- 
ligence to the writer of the letter, and to thofe of the intended 
expedition who were to fhare with him the plunder of the 
Kaffers' cattle, which, in fadt, and not any laudable motive for 
the peace and welfare of the diftridl, was the mainfpring that 
operated on the minds of thofe who had confented to take up 
arms againft them. To the avaricious and covetous difpofition 
of the colonifts, and their licentious conduct, was owing a 
ferious rupture with this nation in the year 1 793, which 
terminated with the almoft total expulfion of the former from 
fome of the divifions of the diftri<ft : and though in the fame 
year the treaty was renewed which fixed the Great Fi£h river 
to be the line of demarcation between the two nations, and the 
Kaffers retired within their proper limits, yet few of the colo- 
nifts 
