after a short acquaintance he informed them that he intended to try to communicate with the farmers of Graaff-Reinet from Delagoa Bay, but if he could not do so he would proceed to Algoa Bay as soon as his vessel was repaired and he had taken in wood and water. This divulging of his business was fatal to his mission, for the Hope was really an English ship, and was only flying the American flag as a ruse.
The Haasje went some distance up the Tembe river, to the territory of the kapela, where her cargo was landed, and she was then hove down to be repaired. On his arrival Skipper De Freyn engaged a black man to go inland with a letter addressed to the farmers of Graaff-Reinet, and while his vessel was being repaired he set out in person to try to make his way to them, but after three days' travel was obliged by the attitude of the inhabitants to return.
A day or two later a Portuguese vessel arrived in Delagoa Bay to remove the distressed people. From her the master of the Hope got assistance in men and guns,[1] and then proceeded up the river to attack the Dutch. The Haasje was so far ready for sea that she was afloat in the river with six pieces of artillery in her hold, when a Tonga brought a report that the English were approaching with hostile intentions. De Freyn at once sank his vessel, and prepared for defence on shore, where all the cargo—except the six guns—was stacked up and covered with sails. On the 28th of May the English and Portuguese attacked him, but a party of Kapela's
- ↑ De Freyn, in a deposition made in Capetown on the 18th of October before the attorney Willem Kolver, says eight fieldpieces and fifty soldiers under a Portuguese officer. Alexander Dixon, mate of the Hope, in his official report, says ten men with a supply of ammunition and four guns. The only other document in the Cape archives from an actor and eye-witness—a deposition of Frans Nicholas Peterson, a Dane who was chief officer of the Haasje—does not settle the question. It is not a matter of very great importance.
