In January 1797 a commission was issued creating a court of vice admiralty, with a single judge, and Mr. John Holland was sent from England to fill the office. The area of jurisdiction of this court was defined in the commission as extending from Cape Negro on the western coast to Cape Correntes on the eastern.
An improvement of inestimable importance to the efficiency of the civil service was made at this time by a change in the mode of payment of officials of lower grade than those already referred to. It was a change admitted to be necessary by the latest administrators of the Dutch East India Company, and was even resolved upon by them, but they could never carry it into practice, owing to their want of funds. If the colonial revenue should prove insufficient for the purpose, Lord Macartney was directed to draw upon the imperial treasury through the English East India Company to make good the deficiency. Fixed salaries were now assigned to the officials, which they were to receive at regular intervals, and though the salaries were so small that there was no inducement for the best men to enter the service, a fairly efficient staff was secured. All fees and perquisites, upon which they had previously mainly depended, were thereafter paid into the public treasury. An exception, however, was made in the office of fiscal, the holder of which continued to receive the chief part of his income in the form of a third share of confiscations and fines imposed by the high court of justice.
Mr. Bresler was instructed by Lord Macartney to return to Graaff-Reinet and assume duty as landdrost. With him was sent a guard of twelve dragoons, who were to remain at the drostdy as a garrison and to carry despatches. All arrears of land rents to the 16th of September 1795 were remitted. The former inhabitants of the fieldcornetcies of Zuurveld, Tarka, Zwagershoek, Sneeuwberg, and Nieuwveld, who had been driven from their
