4 
TRAVELS IN 
prefent volume, enter very fully into the queftion of the po- 
litical, military, and commercial advantages, which this grand 
outwork of all the European pofTeffions in India commands, 
and of the dangers to which thofe of the BritiQi empire in that 
quarter of the world, as well as the trade of the Eaft-India 
Company, are now expofed, by having refigned this point of 
fecurity into the hands of an enemy. I feel it, indeed, in- 
cumbent on me to prove a pofition I then took for granted, 
that the Cape of Good Hope was an acqu'ifition by which our po- 
litical and commercial Interejls in the Eaji Indies had been fecured 
and promoted* 
Having hitherto dwelt more fully on the charader and dif- 
pofition of the feveral tribes of aboriginal inhabitants, bordering 
upon the colony, than of the Dutch and German fettlers, I 
thought it expedient to commence the prefent volume with a 
military expedition to the Kalfer frontier, in order to afford 
myfelf an opportunity of making fuch remarks and obfervations, 
as had either efcaped me in compofmg the firft, or had pur- 
pofely been omitted. The character and difpofition of the 
inhabitants of a country, likely to become the feat of war, are 
points of nofmall importance to be known previous toitsconqueft. 
The late King of Pruflia, that wife and vigorous monarch who, 
if now living, would not have been tardy in aflifting to repel 
republican tyranny or confular defpotifm, recommends, in his 
celebrated inftrudions to his general officers, a particular atten- 
tion to the ftudy of the difpofition, the temper, and the turn of 
mind, of the people inhabiting thofe countries which were def- 
tined to be the object of a military expedition. 
In 
