INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. Ixx 



*' can really be preservetl :* and also, since plants have been 

 " procurable. Accordint;" to present appearances, penal obliga- 

 " tions will be superfluous. At present, my chief doubt arises 

 '•' from the apprehension that I shall not be able to supply the 

 •' whole of the demands for the present year." 



It has been already stated, that the climate of St. Helena is 

 remarkably pure and salubrious, and wholly exempted from 

 gales and tempests. There is abundance of fine water, and a safe 

 and commodious anchorage all along the leeward coast, where 

 ships are not only sheltered by the high land, but are most pow- 

 erfully protected by the fire of the batteries. And as St. Helena 

 is in itself a place of great strength, situated in the direct tract of 

 ships returning from India, it seems impossible to imagine a port 

 more peculiarly adapted for the purposes to which it has been so 

 long appropriated. 



The Cape of Good Hope, since it has become a British colony, 

 appears, however, to have been considered as a more suitable 

 rendezvous. Fresh meat, flour, and wines, can undoubtedly be 

 procured there upon more moderate terms than at St. Helena. I 

 know of no other superiority that the Cape possesses ; and I am 

 firmly persuaded, if the circumstances of both climates, more 

 especially the uniform and moderate breezes of St. Helena, were 

 compared and contrasted with the tremendous gales to which the 

 latitude of tlie Cape is subject, at all seasons of the year,t that 



• The advantages tliat vvere expected to result from the extermination of the goats 

 have been realised : they are pointed out in the first Section of this Work : which is 

 almost verbatim my official minute upontliis subject, dated the 20tii of September, 1810. 

 Although tills measure met with some opposition in the first instance, there is not, now, 

 one person on the island who entertains a doubt of its expediency. 



t In the month of November, 17^^, which is a summer month, H.M. ship Sceptre' 

 and every vessel in Table Bay, was driven on shore. Had there been a valuable India 

 fleet there at the time, it is highly probable that the whole would have shared the same 

 fate. 



