INTERESTING PARTICULARS OF THE LOSS OF THE AMERICAN SHIP HERCULES

[ii,] 7 - 28 pages, uncut edges, blue cloth boards, titled gilt on the spine, a good copy

Extracted from A South African Bibliography, volume 2,  page 652,  'The text was taken over from Capt. Bejamin Stout’s Narrative of the loss of the ship Hercules with some omissions and changed to a narrative in the third person.'

Mendelssohn (Sydney) South African Bibliography, volume 2, page 445, 'Captain Stout's ship went ashore in a great gale "a few miles distant from the mouth of the river Infanta," a place localised by Theal as being "between the mouths of the Keiskama and Beka rivers." He and his crew were well treated by the Kaffirs, who assisted them, directing them how to proceed to the nearest European settlements, and furnishing them with guides. On starting, the party consisted of sixty men, but only twenty-four arrived at the residence of Jan Du Pliesjes, the others being left behind from time to time, although some of them eventually arrived
in the Cape Colony. The farmer showed the shipwrecked sailors the utmost hospitality and lent them a waggon, oxen, and Hottentot drivers, with whose assistance they eventually arrived at Cape Town. They were received by the Boers with much kindness, which Captain Stout notes "with scrupulous attention to fidelity, because the colonists, without distinction, have been frequently represented as a ferocious banditti,
scarcely to be kept within the pale of authority." They arrived at Cape Town on July 30, 1796, and it is stated that they were received by General Craig with some abruptness, and in an unsympathetic manner, but that
Admiral Elphinstone did everything in his power to assist them. Captain Stout remarks, that " many of the colonists live by murdering and plunderng the unoffending inhabitants of the deserts," but he observes that those that he personally met belonged to a " deserving class," and he consideredit his duty "to preserve their characters from the general opprobrium. "He states that the Boers "execrated the Dutch Government for their oppressive conduct towards them, "but it appears that they were nevertheless by no means unanimously in favour of the British occupation of the coimtry. Stout returned to Europe in the Saint Ceccelia, arriving in Ireland about the middle of November 1796.'