With one exception, they had not one thread of European clothing amongst them. They were in the habit of plundering one another, and saw no manner of evil in this, or any of their actions. Violent deaths were common. Their usual manner of living was truly disgusting, and they were void of shame. They were at the most violent enmity with the Bushmen, and treated them on all occasions where they could, with the utmost barbarity. So might these people, wretched victims of European vice and contempt of all laws, human or divine, have remained, had not the missionaries, by incredible labours and patience, won their good will. They have now reduced them to settled and agricultural life; brought them to live in the most perfect harmony with the Bushmen; and in 1819 such was their altered condition that a fair was established at Beaufort for the mutual benefit of them and the colonists, at which business was done to the amount of 27,000 rix dollars; and on the goods sold to the Griquas, the colonists realized a profit of from 200 to 500 per cent.!
Let our profound statesmen, who go on from generation to generation fighting and maintaining armies, and issuing commandoes, look at this, and see how infinitely simple men, with but one principle of action to guide them—Christianity—outdo them in their own profession. They are your missionaries, after all the boast and pride of statesmanship, who have ever yet hit upon the only true and sound policy even in a worldly point of view;[67] who, when the profound statesmen have turned men into miserable and exasperated savages, are obliged to go and again turn them from savages to men,—who, when these wise statesmen have spent their country’s money by millions and shed blood by oceans, and find troubles and frontier wars, and frightful and fire-blackened deserts only growing around—go, and by a smile and a shake of the hand, restore peace, replace these deserts by gardens and green fields, and hamlets of cheerful people; and instead of involving you in debt, find you a market with 200 to 500 per cent. profit!
“It was apparent,” says Captain Stockenstrom, “to every man, that if it had not been for the influence which the missionaries had gained over the Griquas we should have had the whole nation down upon us.” What a humiliation to the pride of political science, to the pride of so many _soi-disant_ statesmen, that with so many ages of experience to refer to, and with such stupendous powers as European statesmen have now in their hands, a few simple preachers should still have to shew them the real philosophy of government, and to rescue them from the blundering and ruinous positions in which they have continually placed themselves with uneducated nations! “If these Griquas had come down upon us,” continues Captain Stockenstrom, “we had no force to arrest them; and I have been informed, that since I left the colony, the government has been able to enter into a sort of treaty with the chief Waterboer, of a most beneficial nature to the Corannas and Griquas themselves, as well as to the safety of the northern frontier.”