TRAVELS IN 
now commuted into money. Their fheep and cattle were fold 
at higher rates than the butchers were accuftomed to give them ; 
and their butter, foap, and candles, which they were always 
under the neceflity of carrying more than five hundred miles 
to market, fetched now, upon the fpot, double the ufual prices. 
This change of circumftances, fo favourable to the boors in 
the vicinity of the bay, was extended, likewife, in fome degree, 
over the whole country by the moving of troops. The officers, 
conftantly paffing upon the road, foon prevailed upon the far- 
mers to take money for their accommodations, which, under the 
Dutch government, they would have been afraid to do. Every 
petty clerk of the Secretary's office, an attorney or land-mea- 
furer, travelling in the country, affumed fuch airs of confe- 
quence, that the ignorant boor was glad to yield the whole 
houfe to his difpofal, and all that it afforded. The officers of 
government w^ere alfo empowered to demand gratuitous teams 
of oxen to convey them, like paupers, from houfe to houfe. If 
a farmer had only a fmgle team, and it happened to be in the 
plough when one of thefe gentry pafTed, it would be necelfary 
for him to break off work, and lend his oxen to tranfport the 
groot heer^ the great gentleman, to the next neighbour's houfe. 
In this refpedl they mufl have felt a fenfible difference in the 
condud: of the Britifh officers. Near ten thoufand pounds were 
circulated, in one year, by the troops in Graaf Reynet, among 
more than two hundred families, and chiefly for articles of pro- 
vifion and forage, many of which, before this period, brought 
them no returns. 
A few 
