GORDON ROCK is the largest of the three granite domes on Paarl Mountain and is named after Robert Jacob Gordon, the commander of the Cape garrison from 1780 to 1795.
Gordon was a great explorer of Southern Africa and his observations, drawings and maps at the time made an enormous contribution to cartography, zoology, botany, meteorology and geology.
He spent just over a year at the Cape in 1773, then returned in 1777 and undertook several journeys into the interior before assuming the command of the Cape garrison in 1780.
Tragically history does not remember him for contribution to science, but for his misadventure in the world of politics.
In the Netherlands as the Patriots were opposed to the House of Orange and all hereditary rights and wanted access to political power. Many of the Cape’s burghers supported the Patriot Movement, while the Company’s officials generally sided with the Orangists.
The House of Orange in turn had strong links with Britain, while the Patriots were pro-French.
The stage was set for high drama when a large British fleet of six warships, a frigate and two sloops sailed into False Bay on 11 June 1795.
The British strategy was based on the assumption that the Cape’s leaders would not be aware of the lastest developments in the Netherlands. So they decided to convince Gordon, the commander of the Cape garrison, that he would be acting in the interests of the House of Orange if he allowed the British fleet to protect the Cape from a French attack.
They went further to suggest that the Dutch armies had in fact surrended to the French, and that Britain and her allies were now amassing a large army to drive the French out of Holland.
The truth was that the Netherlands had not been conquered, nor had there been a change in government. Britain’s real intention was to invade and conquer.
Gordon accepted the British interpretation of events, but was unhappy with Britain’s terms. He played for time by allowing only small numbers of unarmed British troops to disembark and take on provisions.
A few days later an American ship, the Columbia, arrived with official dispatches from the Netherlands. The English immediately confiscated all the mail.
But one report reached land, and it contained a notice dated 4 March 1795, that stated that the Dutch at home and in the colonies were freed of their oath of allegiance to the Prince of Orange and now regarded the French as allies.
Based on this report, the Cape’s Commissioner-General Sluysken and his officials were compelled to defend the Cape against a British invasion. Unable to compromise their allegiance to the House of Orange, they decided to allow the British fleet to take the Cape in defence of Prince William V.
Aware that the free burghers and most of the garrison were pro-Patriots, they embarked on the greatest deception of all - capitulation by stealth.
The subsequent battles be-tween the Dutch and the British at Muizenberg and Wynberg left the Cape’s troups in disarray. Highranking officers deliberately sabotaged their soldiers’ military efforts through disinformation and poor military strategies.
When the Cape finally capitulated on 15 September, the garrison and burghers openly accused Gordon and Sluysken of treason. Gordon’s greatest humiliation came when he and his troops had to lay down their arms at a formal military ceremony.
His soldiers swore and jeered at him in full view of his British counterparts. Gordon had been betrayed and insulted without a means to get redress or justice. His career and life’s work had been destroyed within three disastrous months.
Gordon took his own life on 25 October 1795. His body was found in his garden with a single bullet wound to his head. He was 52 years old.
