A. D. iCi^i. 445- 



Tvoiild prove very commodious for the fupply of water and provifions 

 for their Indian voyages, they are faid, in this year 1651, to have {irft 

 fettled at the Cape, vhere they built a good and fpacious fort, and con- 

 tradted friendihip with the Hottentots, or rather rendered thenifelves 

 formidable and alfo neceflary to them ; whereby the Dutch have cftab- 

 lifhed a noble colony there for many miles north and norch-eafl; of the 

 cape, where they have planted the Madeira grape, producing there a 

 much nobler and richer wine than the original grape. Yet fome will 

 have it, that their vines came from Perfia, and others fay from the 

 Rhine. Thither alfo have the Dutch tranfplanted cinnamon trees from 

 the ifle of Cylon. They are alfo faid to raife there confiderable quan- 

 tities of hemp, &c. So that the duties and the revenues which their 

 Eaft-lndia company raifes there (for they all belong to them) are faid 

 to be more than equals their expenfe for this colony. There the com- 

 pany have warehoufes and houfes for their officers within the fort, and 

 employ a great number of officers, fervants, and negro flaves. They 

 have alfo an hofpital for their fick failors, &c. with an excellent garden, 

 wherein all the curious and ufeful herbs, plants, &c. of Europe, Afia, 

 and Africa, are fuccefsfully cultivated. It is, in fliort, a very hopeful 

 profped for the Dutch republic and their Eafl-India company, who- 

 have greatly augmented the number of its plantations, by means of the 

 French proteflants, who emigrated to it upon the revocation of the edid: 

 of Nantes. So that it will be no wonder if, in another age, this Dutch 

 colony vies with the finefl countries, and proves the envy of the reft of 

 the nations, of Europe. The Dutch company having hereupon aban- 

 doned St. Helena, our Englhh company took poiTcflion of that ifland. 



The Englifli commonwealth teftifying a great inchnadon for the ad- 

 vancement of commerce, we find in this and fome following years, 

 abundance of printed projecTs for promoting particular branches there- 

 of; fome of which have been adopted, and fuccefsfully put in pradice, 

 in our own times : others, indeed, though well enough fuited to cer- 

 tain free cities in the Netherlands, Italy, Germany, Poland, &c. where- 

 in fuch projedors had refided, did not, however, fo well fuit wiiti a 

 great nation. Such, of the former kind, were the propofed projeds of 

 charity banks, and lorabards, or lumber houfes; of the later the mak- 

 ing transferable all promiflory notes between man and man, fo as to 

 circulate as our modern bank notes do ; fuch was alfo the plaufible pro- 

 jeds of one William Potter, in his Key of wealth, and of Henry Robm- 

 "fon, &c. long fince forgotten, who urged the eredion of a land bank, 

 wherein all payments above Lio or L20 fliould by law be direded to 

 be made in bank credit ; and that, btfides the principal bank in Lon- 

 don, there fhould be, perhaps, 100 fubordmate barks in different parts 

 of England, all centering in the capital bank of London : wherein, for 

 the fupport of the credit thereof, a general mortgage of lands was pro 



3 



