History of the Cape Colony before 1806 Reinet. The Netherlands fell to the French army under the leadership of Napoléon Bonaparte in 1795. Reacting to the weakness of the Dutch East India Company holdings, a British army under General Sir James Henry Craig set out for Cape Town to secure the colony for the Stadtholder Prince William V of Orange against the French. The governor of Cape Town refused at first to obey any instructions from the prince, but after the British threatened to use force, he capitulated. The boers of Graaff Reinet did not surrender until an army had been sent against them, and in 1799
Government of India Act 1858 the grave defects in the existing system of the government of India. However, before this bill was to be passed, Palmerston was forced to resign on another issue. Later Edward Henry Stanley, 15th Earl of Derby (who would later become the first Secretary of State for India) introduced another bill which was originally titled as "An Act for the Better Government of India" and it was passed on 2 August 1858. This act provided that India was to be governed directly and in the name of the Crown. The Indian Rebellion of 1857 forced the British Government to pass the