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
Bermuda Militia 1612–87 Bermuda Militia 1612–87 Between 1612 and 1687, Bermuda had a series of militias under the Virginia Company, the Somers Isles Company, and the British Crown. In 1687, the first Militia Act was enacted. Spain had claimed the entirety of the New World, including Bermuda, for itself, and, notwithstanding the Pope's dividing South America between it and Portugal, it ruthlessly sought to prevent other European nations, especially England, establishing a foothold, even in, North America which the Spanish had largely avoided themselves. England's first two attempts at settling the Chesapeake had come under threat from Spanish forces ordered out from Florida