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RETURN of the Extent, Population, and Stock, of the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope for the Year 1841.

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RETURN of the Produce and Land of the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope, for the Year 1841.

PRODUCE.

LAND.

Cape Town 1652

Cape County

74400 32792 13666 37024 2380000 141360 21096 40000 1200000 1128000

2727336 114760 28000

235000 268150

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Stellenbosch 1681 59835 25347 13191 53040
Worcester, late

Tulbagh, 1803 24837 22752 6696 13131
Clanwilliam 1836 12252 3844 3544 1970
Swellendam 1745 124600 128096 2372 60196
George 1811 74205 41139 900 41004
Beaufort
8335 2592

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Eastern Province.

26356 10184 103000 1500000 2000000 2 4 4 1 3 3 6 6080 4560

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1811

10000

57000 2513500 3

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Towns and Villages.

Pl. of Worship. Schools.

Missionaries. Mills. Tanneries.

Hatteries.

Breweries. Candle Manufactories.

Snuff Ditto. Savings' Banks.

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SECTION IV.

HISTORY OF THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS OF THE BRITISH SETTLEMENT, ESTABLISHED IN THE DISTRICTS OF ALBANY AND UTENHAY, ON THE EASTERN FRONTIER OF THE CAPE OF GOOD HOPE, IN THE YEAR 1820.

THE termination of the continental wars in the year 1815, which enabled Great Britain to disband her large military and naval armaments, and restored to other countries a portion of the commerce and carrying trade she had exclusively enjoyed during the long contest, threw out of employment a very large proportion of her population, and effected throughout the United Kingdom extensive and alarming distress; and, however glorious the close of that eventful struggle, it was darkened by intense suffering, aggravated by unproductive seasons, the result of which, but for the adoption of some adequate remedy, was to be extremely dreaded.

During this period of national distress, and the political excitement it naturally produced, the minds of the British Cabinet had been anxiously and frequently engaged in devising palliatives for the evil, and at length colonization was fixed upon as the only effectual remedy. The question of relief was therefore reduced to the simple choice of the future destination of the settlers, who were proposed to be sent away, and the Cape of Good Hope, to which attention had been directed from the time of Mr. Barrow, was fixed upon as the scene of the experiment. This decision reflected upon its originators the highest credit for sound policy, in engrafting its native-born subjects on a conquered possession, and in diffusing a free labouring population among a community of slave-owners. The selection of a settlement like the Cape, blessed with a delightful climate, and from its long prior establishment capable of supplying the wants of the new comers, and thus preventing much of that misery inséparable from the formation of a new colony, was also characterized by humane foresight.

In July, 1819, the Commons House of Parliament granted a sum of £50,000 to carry the emigration into effect. The promulgation of the intentions of Government was received and em

braced with avidity by the public, and the applications for permission to avail themselves of the facilities offered were numerous beyond expectation. The number to be accepted was limited to 4000 souls, and the disappointment of the unsuccessful candidates, amounting to above 90,000, was bitter beyond description.

The two first vessels with the adventurers (the Chapman and Nautilus transports) left the English coast the 9th December, 1819, and arrived in Table Bay on the 17th March following, and on the 9th of April they anchored in Algoa Bay on the eastern frontier, where the anxious emigrants safely debarked on the following day. From the tenor of the Government circulars it was generally supposed by the emigrants that they were to be settled around the port, but on their arrival, to their annoyance, they learned that their ultimate location was fixed above 100 miles in advance, a discovery more particularly unpalatable when they found that their transport thither was to be at their own cost. Waggons were liberally supplied, however, by the Government, and the first party of the emigration was located on the 26th April near the mouth of the Great Fish River, on the ruins of a Dutch farm, which had been plundered and burnt by the Kafirs some years before. To this foundation of the British settlement in Albany the new comers gave the name of Cuylerville, as a token of respect to Colonel Cuyler, the chief magistrate of the district of Utenhay, whose kindness and attentions were both fatherly and unremitting.

Before the middle of the year 1820, the remainder of the settlers had all arrived in the colony, consisting in the whole of 3736 persons. Two small parties had been located in the districts of Clanwilliam and Swellendam, in the Western Province; but they were soon disgusted with that part of the colony, and joined the majority of their countrymen in the Zureveld. The whole of this large number of emigrants were landed through the surf in Algoa Bay, without the occurrence of an accident or the loss of a single life; a circumstance which speaks volumes in favour of the port, which very unjustly had acquired a bad reputation*.

It would be ungrateful at this place not to name as deserving the highest praise the conduct of the Commandant of Fort Frederick,

A clever writer, lately gathered to his fathers, in an interesting and useful work, intituled, "The State of the Cape in 1822,” shortly after the arrival of the British settlers, did them the injustice to represent their anxiety to leave their native hearths as arising from political disgust. He stated that the settlers exported with them feelings of hostility to the parent state, and that possibly the Home administration, mindful of the consequences which in the reign of the First Charles followed a prevention of the departure to America of Hazlerig, Hampden, Pym and Cromwell, encouraged this emigration of the discontented to a distant part of the globe. This cruel surmise had for several years the most injurious effects upon the character of the immigrants, and was only erased by the noble denial which was given to it by his Majesty's Commissioners of Inquiry in 1825. Now, it may be as well at once ingenuously to confess that the emigration of 1819 to the Cape of Good Hope, perhaps unluckily for the glory of the settlers, had nothing romantic about its character. It was neither encircled by the celestial halo of religious enthusiasm, nor dignified by the sublimity of voluntary exile in search of freedom; it was not the growth of fanaticism, nor, to use the words of the calumniator, the result of the "fears of bereavement of political and personal liberty." It was, as far as the mass of the settlers were concerned, the emigration of intelligent and feeling men; of men who had fortified their minds to undergo the separation from country and from kindred, fleeing with their offspring from actual penury, or its gradual yet certain approach. If Albany is destined to become the seat of a new empire at the extremity of the African continent, and to own an independent flag, she must be contented to trace her origin to those pressing, but not discreditable motives. The founders of Albany, in the words of the poet, abandoned their native home to seek

A warmer world, a milder clime,-
A home to rest, a shelter to defend,-
Peace and repose."

Captain Francis Evett, formerly of the 21st Light Dragoons. This fine veteran officer (now an octogenarian) waded through the surf, and landed with his own hands the greater number of the women and children. Nor did the old gentleman's kindness end here, for his house and table were open to all whose character and conduct deserved the attention.

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