Europe, where the voice of the colonists was never heard, and they
created impressions there which no refutation made in South Africa
could ever counteract. The acts, the language, even the written
petitions of the colonists, were so distorted in accounts sent home,
that these accounts cannot now be read by those who have made
themselves acquainted with the truth, without the liveliest feelings
of indignation being excited.

The colonists learned that in England they were regarded as cruel
barbarians because they refused to permit Hottentot herds, swarming
with vermin, to be seated in their front rooms at the time of family
prayer. They found themselves pictured as the harshest of
taskmasters, as unfeeling violators of native rights. And of late
years it had become plain to them that the views of their opponents
were being acted upon at the Colonial Office, while their complaints
were wholly disregarded.

Several causes of dissatisfaction, besides those above mentioned,
contributed to the impulse of emigration, but all in a very slight
degree. Judge Cloete, in his 'Five Lectures,' mentions the severe
punishment inflicted upon the frontier insurgents of 1815 as one of
them; and there is no doubt that it was so with some families, though
no trace of it can be found in the correspondence of the emigrants.
The substitution in 1827 of the English for the Dutch language in the
colonial courts of law was certainly generally felt as a grievance.
The alteration in 1813 of the system of land tenure, the redemption
in 1825 of the paper currency at only thirty-six hundredths of its
nominal value, and the abolition in 1827 of the courts of landdrost
and heemraden, unquestionably caused much dissatisfaction, though all
of these measures are now admitted by everyone to have been