But when we come to consider the provocation, received at the hands of these savage enemies, we learn to look more leniently upon the conduct of the Cape Dutch.

It is true they reduced the yellow Hottentots to a state of slavery; but at that same time, we, the English, were transporting ship-loads of black Guineamen across the Atlantic, while the Spaniards and Portuguese were binding the Red men of America in fetters as tight and hard.
Another point to be considered is the character of the natives with whom the Dutch boors had to deal.

The keenest cruelty inflicted upon them by the colonists was mercy, compared with the treatment which these savages had to bear at the hands of their own despots.
This does not justify the Dutch for having reduced the Hottentots to a state of slavery; but, all circumstances considered, there is no one of the maritime nations who can gracefully accuse them of cruelty.

In their dealings with the aborigines of the Cape, they have had to do with savages of a most wicked and degraded stamp; and the history of colonisation, under such circumstances, could not be otherwise then full of unpleasant episodes.
Young reader, I could easily defend the conduct of the boors of Cape colony, but I have not space here.

I can only give you my opinion; and that is, that they are a brave, strong, healthy, moral, peace-loving, industrious race--lovers of truth, and friends to republican freedom--in short, a noble race of men.
Is it likely, then, when I called Hendrik Von Bloom a boor, that I meant him any disrespect?
Quite the contrary.
But Mynheer Hendrik had not always been a boor.