In 1790 the Netherlands East India Company was practically bankrupt; and in the following year (when it was computed that the European population of the Cape numbered 14,600 persons, owning 17,000 slaves) the Dutch Governor was recalled to Europe, and the country was for a year left in a state of administrative chaos, until two Commissioners, sent out by the States General, arrived and took over the government. But the next year these Commissioners went on to Batavia; and the Burghers of the interior districts became so dissatisfied with the mismanagement of affairs that they expelled their magistrates and took the administration of their district into their own hands, calling themselves “Nationals,” and becoming to some degree infected with the spirit of the French Revolution. Meantime, in the same year, 1793, the Dutch Government had joined England and Prussia in making war upon France. Two years afterwards, in 1795, the French troops occupied Holland, and turned it into the Batavian Republic, a state in alliance with France. The Prince of Orange, hereditary Stadhouder of the Netherlands, fled to England; and in the spring of 1795 he authorized the British Government to occupy Cape Colony on behalf of the States General in order to obviate its seizure by the French. In June 1795 a British fleet carrying troops commanded by General Craig arrived at False Bay. The Dutch were not very willing to surrender Cape Town at the first demand, even though the interior of the country was in revolt against the Company. Both the officer administering the Company’s Government and the dissatisfied Burghers sank their differences in opposition to the landing of the British. The latter were anxious to avoid hostilities, and therefore spent a month in negotiations; but on the 14th of July the British forcibly occupied Simons Town, and three weeks later drove the Dutch from a position they had taken up near Cape Town. In September 3000 more troops arrived under General Clarke, and in the middle of that month marched on Cape Town from the south-east. A capitulation was finally arranged after an attack and a defence which had been half-hearted. Thenceforth for eight years the English occupied Cape Town and administered the adjoining colony. At first their rule was military, just, and satisfactory; afterwards, when a civilian governor was sent out, a system of corruption and favouritism was introduced which caused much dissatisfaction. The British also had made it known that they only held the colony in trust for the Stadhouder; and this made the Dutch settlers uncertain as to their allegiance. Meantime, however, the British administration gave some satisfaction to the settlers by its policy of free trade and open markets, and by certain reliefs in