Note 55 — III. Governor Willem Adriaan van der Stel. A History of the Successful Struggle of a few Hollanders and Huguenots against Tyranny and Corruption.

This clergyman was of French descent, was educated for the ministry of the Roman catholic church, and had been a monk in the abbey of Boneffe in Belgium. After becoming a Protestant he wrote a book entitled Dwalingen van het Pausdom. He could converse in many languages, and was unquestionably a man of high ability and learning, but he was of irascible disposition and wherever he went was engaged in strife. After he left South Africa he became a doctor of laws, and died at a very advanced age at Batavia in 1748, after having been during the preceding nineteen years minister of the Protestant Portuguese congregation at that place.