THEWHITEINVADERS
tually, the directors dismissed the governor and three other senior officials,
deprived them of their colonial estates, and forbade officialsto own land or
to trade. The local officialshad been given notice that they were dependent
on the goodwill of the substantial colonial farmers. Corruption was never-
theless the way of lifein the Dutch East India Company. "[hose prohibitions
had always been on the company statute book, and always ignored.
Throughout the eighteenth century, as previously, Cape officials found
ways to supplement their salaries in defiance of the law.16
The company never solved this problem. It was primarily concerned to
reduce its losses in administering its colony by continuing to dominate the
local economy, buying local produce low and selling imported goods high,
and turning a blind eyeto its servants' ways of augmenting their salaries at
the expense of the local people. The resulting tensions between company
interests and settler interests were only slightly ameliorated by marriages
between officialsand burghers' daughters. They came to a head again in the
last quarter of the century, when the Netherlands had lost its economic
supremacy to France and Britain and the Dutch East India. Company, on