Page:An introduction to Roman-Dutch law.djvu/47

Law in the Dutch Colonies.

and the Dutch West India Company incorporated in 1621, carried the Roman-Dutch Law into their settlements. The Cape was occupied by Van Riebeek in 1652. The maritime districts of Ceylon were won from the Portuguese in 1656. The Dutch settlements upon the ‘Wild Coast’ of South America, which came to be known as Guiana, date from the early years of the seventeenth century. How far the Dutch Statute Law was in force in the Colonies. How far the statutes of the mother country were in force in these Colonies the evidence hardly allows us to say. On principle they would not apply unless expressly declared to be applicable, or at least unless locally promulgated;^[1] but some may have been accepted by custom as part of the common law.^[2] As regards laws of the patria passed subsequently to the date of settlement it may be thought that the burden of proof lies on him who alleges their application. The fact is that the States-General legislated but seldom for the Colonies, having delegated their functions in this regard to the two Chartered Companies of East and West. These acted through their Committees, the Councils of XVII and the Council of X respectively; and the East India Company also, through its Governor-General in Batavia, issued rules for the government of the various stations, which, if locally promulgated, had binding force until superseded or forgotten.^[3] In addition to these there were the enactments of the local governors. Failing all the above and any colonial custom having the force of law, recourse was had to ‘the laws statutes and customs of the United Netherlands’ and, where these were silent, in the last

1. As to the necessity of promulgation see Gr. 1. 2. 1, and Groenewegen and Schorer, ad loc.; Van Leeuwen, 1. 3. 14; V. d. K. Th. 1.
2. See Appendix to this Chapter (infra, p. 24).
3. The collected edition of the Statutes of Batavia of 1642 seems to have been promulgated at the Cape in 1715. Burge, Colonial and Foreign Laws (New Edition), vol. i, p. 115. Governor van der Parra's New Statutes of Batavia of 1766 were never recognized by the States-General and had not strictly the force of law. The law in force in the West Indies was defined by the Ordre van Regeeringe of October 13, 1629 (2 G. P. B. 1235; Burge, vol. i, p. 119), and later by the resolutions of the States-General of October 4, 1774 (Laws of Brit. Gui., ed. 1905, vol. i, p. 1; Burge, vol. i, pp. 121 ff.).