Page 38 - Bulletin 20 2016

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In this same year the Treaty of Amiens was concluded and under which the Cape of Good
Hope was restored to what had emerged at this time as the governing body of the
Netherlands, the Batavian Republic. By 1803 the last British troops had departed the Cape
and had hardly reached England before war with France broke out again and plans were put
into effect to take possession of the Cape, once more.

The first occupation of the Cape had been recognized by both the Dutch and English as a
temporary intervention. Thus, life had gone on as before under Dutch rule. The second
occupation, however, was soon viewed to be permanent and the British authorities began to
address what they recognized as shortcomings in the administration of the Cape under V.O.C.
/ Dutch rule.

In 1806, having lost his inheritance through the incompetence and avarice of Endres, the
eldest son of Jeremias Auret (also named Jeremias) began farming a plot of land called
Klassjagers River. This river flows through the Groot Smitswinkel Vlakte which his father
had unsuccessfully requested as a loan place years before. In a memorial dated ‘1806-1807’,
Auret states how he and his family had been living on this property for some time before the
British occupation on the advice of the, then-Inspector of Government Lands, H. Cloete.
Believing the surrender of the colony had hindered the successful processing of his
application, he asked that it now, “be given to him in freehold (the plot consisting of 10
morgen), under such conditions as may be deemed proper”. (Figs. 2.13 & 2.14.) Auret’s
application, for the present, was not successful for on the cover of this memorial was the
following government memorandum:

“memorial for land in perpetuity received after the time when it had been resolved not
to grant any land in perpetuity until further order” (47) .

This can be taken to explain not only the delay in the Auret grant but also hints at why, at the
death of Jan Willem Hurter in 1807, Mrs. Hurter did not automatically inherit Olifantsbos. As
has been touched upon, the particulars of the ‘special’ agreement or vergunning under which
Jan Willem Hurter held Olifantsbos are not known. What can be said is that, at his death, the
land did not pass on to his wife as easily as, for example, Buffelsfontein passed to the wife of
Jeremias Auret. Obviously, having been granted to Auret as a proper loan place inferred legal

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