SOUTHERN AFRICA. 163 
flreaded 011 account of the consummate ignorance of the 
bulk of the settlers. Some French emissaries, those assiduous 
disturbers of the peace of mankind, who, snake-like, have 
crept into every society and corner of the world, poisoning 
the springs of harmony and good order, found little diiiiculiy 
in urging a people, alread}' so well disposed, to carry their 
'new principles into practice. The few ofiicers of government 
Avho were supposed to be attached to the cause of the Stadt- 
holder, and friends to the old system, were completely sub- 
dued ; and the weakness of the gov^ernor favored the views of 
the disorderly citizens. They became clamorous to declare 
themselves, by some public act, a free and independent re- 
public ; they prepared to plant the tree of liberty ; and es- 
tablished a convention, whose first object was to make out 
proscribed lists of those who were either to sutler death bj 
the new-fashioned mode of the guillotine, which they had 
taken care to provide for the purpose, or to be banished out 
of the colony. * It is almost needless to state that the per- 
sons, so marked out to be the victims of an unruly rabble, 
were the only Avorthy people in the settlement, and most of 
them members of government. 
The slaves, whose numbers of grown men, as I have before 
observed, are about five to one of male whites Avho have ar- 
rived at the age of maturity, had also their meetings to decide 
upon the fate of the free and independent burghers, Avhen 
the happy days of their own emancipation should arrive, 
which, from the conversations of their masters on the bless- 
ings of liberty and equality, and the unalienable rights of 
1 * 
