, perhaps, to censure too severely the Boer proclivities in favour of
that ancient institution, nor to be surprised if it should be a work of
time, accompanied with severe Providential chastisement, to uproot that
fixed idea from the minds of the present generation, of Boer descent.
The sin of enslaving their fellow-men may perhaps be reckoned, for them,
among the "sins of ignorance." Nevertheless, the Recording Angel has not
failed through all these generations to mark the woes of the slaves; and
the historic vengeance, which sooner or later infallibly follows a
century or centuries of the violation of the Divine Law and of human
rights, will not be postponed or averted even by a late repentance on
the part of the transgressors. It is striking to note how often in
history the sore judgment of oppressors has fallen (in this world), not
on those who were first in the guilt, but on their successors, just as
they were entering on an amended course of "ceasing to do evil and
learning to do well."

In 1795, Cape Town was formally ceded by the Prince of Orange to Great
Britain, as an incident of the great war with France, for which, six
million pounds sterling was paid by Great Britain to Holland. British
supremacy was formally recognized in this part of South Africa by a
Convention signed in 1814, which was confirmed by the Treaty of Paris in
1815.

British rule for some thirty years after 1806 was perforce despotic, but
for the most part, with some exceptions, it was a benevolent despotism.
"They had the difficult task of controlling a straggling white
community, at first almost exclusively composed of Boers, who had been
too sturdy and stubborn to tolerate any effective interference by the
Netherlands Company and other authorities in Holland, and who resented
both English domination and the advent of English colonists which more
than doubled the white population in less than two decades." "The
Governors sent out from Downing Street had tasks imposed upon them which
were beyond the powers of even the wisest and worthiest. Most of the
English colonists found it easier to fall in with the thoughts and
habits of the Boers than to uphold the purer traditions of life and
conduct in the mother country, and it is not strange that many of the
officials should have been in like case."[10]

Great Britain abolished the Slave Trade in 1807, which prevented the
further importation of Slaves, and the traffic in them.

The great Emanc