Note 70 — III. Governor Willem Adriaan van der Stel. A History of the Successful Struggle of a few Hollanders and Huguenots against Tyranny and Corruption.

See the Contra Deductie, pages 126, 180, and 279. Kolbe states that his wife attempted to commit suicide on account of his conduct, but I would be disinclined to accept the evidence of that author unless it was well supported. Tas, however, in his journal, states on information supplied to him that in December 1705 the governor’s wife tried to drown herself by jumping into the fountain behind her residence at the Cape, and that Mrs. Bergh sprang forward and drew her out of the water. She complained that life was a misery to her, owing to what she was obliged to see and hear daily. Of Mrs. Van der Stel so little is known that it would not be right to express an opinion as to whether her conduct towards her husband was or was not such as to provoke him to neglect her for other women, but this can be said with confidence, that the man who was utterly faithless towards his country, his rulers, and one who was weak enough to trust him as Wouter Valckenier had done, may without hesitation be pronounced capable of being equally faithless towards the mother of his children, the most unhappy woman in the settlement.