Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations and Maps
- Preface
- Author's Note
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations
- Part I Scotland: Border Farm to Literary Edinburgh (1789–1820)
- Part II The Cape Frontier: Pioneer, Settler Leader (1820–1821)
- Part III Cape Town and Genadendal: The Stand Against Power (1822–1825)
- 8 Westward
- 9 ‘An Arrant Dissenter’
- 10 Vale of Grace
- 11 On the Frontier: the Final Year
- Part IV The Frontier, Karroo: Rural Retreat and the ‘Great Cause’ (1825–1826)
- Part V London Literary Life and The Anti-Slavery Campaign (1826–1833)
- Part VI Scotland and Highgate A Poet Returns to his Roots and Last Works (1830–1834)
- Bibliography
- Index
11 - On the Frontier: the Final Year
from Part III - Cape Town and Genadendal: The Stand Against Power (1822–1825)
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2013
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations and Maps
- Preface
- Author's Note
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations
- Part I Scotland: Border Farm to Literary Edinburgh (1789–1820)
- Part II The Cape Frontier: Pioneer, Settler Leader (1820–1821)
- Part III Cape Town and Genadendal: The Stand Against Power (1822–1825)
- 8 Westward
- 9 ‘An Arrant Dissenter’
- 10 Vale of Grace
- 11 On the Frontier: the Final Year
- Part IV The Frontier, Karroo: Rural Retreat and the ‘Great Cause’ (1825–1826)
- Part V London Literary Life and The Anti-Slavery Campaign (1826–1833)
- Part VI Scotland and Highgate A Poet Returns to his Roots and Last Works (1830–1834)
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
The Pringles were away from Cape Town and back on Eildon for a full year, from February 1825 to February 1826, just two months short of their departure from South Africa forever. Thomas had withdrawn to try and repair his totally shattered fortunes enough to pay his most pressing debts and finance their return to Britain.
He had written an eloquent appeal to Lord Bathurst on 15 January 1825. After listing the blows dealt to him by Somerset that had destroyed him, he asked that:
Your Lordship shall be graciously pleased to view my humble but zealous services as the leader of one of the most orderly, and energetic parties that have come out to South Africa, as deserving of … moderate compensation and encouragement…I shall feel duly grateful for such favourable consideration, and willingly admit that all my claims on His Majesty's Government have been generously cancelled.
The requested compensation was moderate indeed: ‘a sufficient grant of land and competent means of occupying and improving it’, willing as he was ‘to try my fortunes as a settler in South Africa’ – a new beginning after the 1820 settlement.
He then made what turned out to be a cardinal error, not in stating what he did but in carrying it out with the grant of land not yet decided. Lord Bathurst, he wrote
will not be surprised at my adopting the only alternative that remains to me, namely, that of abandoning a colony where as a literary man I have been insulted and persecuted, as an instructor of youth openly discouraged and secretly calumniated and where as a Settler I have now no better prospects before me than poverty and distress.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Thomas PringleSouth African pioneer, poet and abolitionist, pp. 138 - 144Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2012