fometimes to abufe, fometimes to negle£t, and very often to
contempt.
In fa£t, all fyftems of provincial judicature feem liable to the
fame objections. If too much power be confided in the hands
of the magiftrates, the temptation to corruption is proportionally
great, and to attempt to execute the law without the power
would feem a mockery of juftice. The latter was very much
the cafe in the diftant parts of the Cape colony.
For waiit of fuch a power the laws have certainly, in njolt
eafes, proved unavailing. The Landroft had only the fhadow
of authority. The council and the country overfeers were
compofed of farmers, and were always more ready to ikreen
and protect their brother boors, accufed of crimes, than to aflift
in bringing them to juftice. The poor Hottentot had little
chance of obtaining redrefs for the wrongs he fuffered from the
boors. However willing the Landroft might be to receive his
complaints, he poflefied not the means of removing the grievance.
To efpoufe the caufe of the Hottentot was a fure way
to lofe his popularity. And the diftance from the capital was
a fufficient ohftacle to the preferring of complaints before the
Court of Juftice at the Cape. Whenever this has happened,
the orders of the Court of Juftice met with as little refpeit, at
the diftance of five or fix hundred miles, as the orders of the
Landroft and his council. If a man, after being fummoned,
did not chufe to appear, there was no force in the country to
compel him; and they knew it would have been fruitlefs to
dilpatch
dilpatch fuch a force from the Cape. Hence murders and the
moft atrocious crimes were committed with impunity ; and the
only punilhment was a fentence of outlawry for contempt of
Court; a fentence that was attended with little inconvenience
to the criminal, who ftill continued to maintain his ground in
fociety, as if no fuch fentence was hanging over him. It debarred
him, it is true, from making his ufual vifits to the capital,
but he found no difficulty in getting his bufinefs done by
commiflion. Numberlefs inftances of this kind occurred, yet
the fyftem remained the fame. Perhaps, indeed, it would be
difiicult to fuggeft a better, till a greater degree of population
ihall compel the inhabitants to dwell ip villages, or the limits of
the colony be contrasted into a narrower compafs.
This extenfive fettlement, whofe dimenfions have been given
above, is divided into four diftri£ts, namely,
I. The diftriit of the Cape.
- 2. of Stellenbofch and Drakenftein.
3. of Zwellendam.
4. ■ of Graaf Reynet.
C a p e D i s t r i c t .
Of thefe the Cape diftridt is by much the fmalleft, but the
moft populous. It may be confidered as divided into two parts;
one confiding of the peninfula on which the Town is fituated,
the other of the flip of land extending from the fhore of Table
Bay to the mouth of the Berg River in Saint Helena Bay, and
x x 2 feparated