The Batavian Republic 529
vian, or British, from interfering with them in matters of land or labor.^45 Probably
there was more sympathy with the Batavian and European revolutions among the
Dutch in and near Cape Town than in the two “republics.”
The British in 1802, by the Treaty of Amiens, handed over the Cape Colony to
the Batavian Republic, which held and administered it for four years. In 1806, with
the renewal of war, the British returned, this time to remain permanently. In 1806
they met with considerable resistance, where they had found virtually none in
- There is this much evidence that the South African Dutch favored the
changes brought about by the Batavian revolution.
Developments within South Africa, with its mere 20,000 whites, were of no
more than incidental significance on the larger stage, except as a reminder of geo-
graphically remote repercussions of movements stirring the world of western civi-
lization. External implications were more important. The British occupation of the
Dutch colonies, made possible by the Batavian revolution, had many international
and worldwide ramifications.
Noël, as French envoy at The Hague, in January 1796 sent an interesting letter
to the French foreign minister, Delacroix.^46 The Batavian Republic, he said, natu-
rally wished French aid in getting back the Cape. The Cape was the key to India.
If the British, having the Cape and Ceylon, should succeed in the conquest of
India, they would gain “much more than they lost in the American Revolution.”
The French should therefore send agents to India to persuade “Tippu- Saib” (the
sultan of Mysore) to ally with France and Holland. “It is in India that the strongest
blows against British power must be delivered.” So the idea now arose, as some
might say, of exporting “Jacobinism” to India.
45 This is the view of Marais, VI and 90. The British General Craig believed the two republics to
be “infected with the rankest poison of Jacobinism.” Cory, I, 63.
46 Colenbrander, II, 29.