Of these, 82 were Americans, 66 Dancs, 24 Portu guese, 6 Swedes, 15 from Hamburgh, 4 from Prussia and Bremen, and the rest English.
While this settlement was subject to the Dutch East India Company, its revenue was never adequate to the contingencies and extraordinary expellees of its govern ment, and it was retained merely as a place of refresh ment for the outward and homeward bound India ships, which they considered as an ample compensation for the annual expenditure of 300,000 guilders. In 1770, the deficiencies in the receipts for defraying the expences of the colony amounted to 26,7681. I Is. 3d. sterling, be ing nearly two-thirds of the expenditure ; and in 1779 it was increased to 28,1911. The average revenue from 1784 to 1794 was about 100,000 mix-dollars yearly; but, The supreme government of this colony is vested by the king in a governor or lieutenant governor. Each district is placed under the authority of a Land-droost, assisted by a council of burghers, six in number, called the I cemraaden. The office of Land-droost is some what similar to that of sheriff of a county in Scotland. The person filling that station is not only at the head of the police of his district, but presides in the provincial court, with authority to hear and decide civil actions, where the sum contended for does not exceed 150 rix dollars, and to try such criminal suits as do not infer a capital punishment. His decisions arc open to appeal, and subject to the revisal of the court of justice Cape Town. The court of justice is composed dig presi dent and six judges, appointed by the governor, form ing a court of competent jurisdiction, to try all causes civil or criminal that may he brought before them, de ciding by plurality of votes, as a special jury. An ap peal lies from their judgment to the court of appeals, in which the governor or lieutenant governor decides upon a statement of the case agreed upon by parties be fore the inferior court; and from the decision of the court of appeals, an action may be carried in appeal be fore the king and council. The legal proceedings are regulated by a code of laws, emanating from the Dutch East India company, called the Statuttofcf hhu, found ed upon the basis of the civil law, and di awn up ex for the jurisprudence of their plc. ssiohs in the
East. Beside the statutes of India, the proclamations of the governor were considered as laws, and were sup posed to relate to such circumstances as were in their nature only local or temporal y.
In Cape Town there is also an inferior court for the summary decision of petty suits, consisting of a presi dent, vice-president, and four members : it is the duty of this court to grant licenses to parties intending to mar ry, without which no clergyman is authorised to perform the ceremony.
There is an excellent institution here, called the Wees-kammer, or Orphan Chamber, appointed by go vernment for administering the affairs of orphuhs and minors. This board is composed of a president, secre tary, and four members. The fiscal is president ex cfficio. Private executors are by law allowed 5 per cent. for their trouble, and property sold by them is liable to a a tax of five per cent.; whereas the property managed by the Orphan Chamber is exempted from the tax on the transfer of immoveable property, and is charged 7} per cent., consequently 24 per cent. arc saved to those interested, in addition to the security derived by the most helpless part of the community, from having their effects vested in the charge of a public college establish ed by law, instead of becoming victims to ignorance, to misfortune, or to fraud. The fiscal is the attorney gene ral and public prosecutor in all criminal cases. He is also the chief magistrate of police, and in this capacity has authority to inflict corporal punishment upon such of the inhabitants as are not burghers for petty offences, and is empowered to impose fines and accept pecuniary compositions for misdemeanors, and where the offender does not wish to risk a public trial. This power was formerly subject to most enormous abuses ; but the government limited the sum that could be demanded, in cases of compromise, to 200 rix dollars.