THEWHITEINVADERS
the governor to act in consultation with a council composed of the other
senior officials, and then increasing the power of the council and enlarging
it to include a number of nominated colonists as well as officials.The effects
were shown in the Masters and Servants Ordinance of 1841, which began
to undermine the yoth Ordinance. Even so, colonists were not satisfied
with this constitutional arrangement, which left great power in the hands
of officialsresponsible to London. It broke down completely in 1849, when
a British attempt to offload a shipload of British convicts on the-Cape
Colony evoked a rare response of indignant cooperation between all sec-
tions of the white population-British
and Afrikaner, western and eastern,
rich and poor. The government was obliged to yield. 'The Cape did not
follow the Australian colonies into becoming a dumping ground for British
convicts.
By then, the British government had already asked the local officials to
suggest a constitutional framework for representative institutions. As con-
sultations continued at the Cape, the anticonvict coalition fell apart, and
ethnic, racial, and class cleavages took over. The ethnic cleavage impelled
the leading British merchants, professional people, and farmers, who had