l62 
TRAVELS IN 
of Brazil Is the voyage of a month ; from the Dutch colonies 
of Surinam, Demarara, Berbice, and Effiquebo, with the Weft 
India iflands, fix weeks ; the fame to the Red Sea ; and two 
months to the coafts of Malabar and Coromandel. With the 
eaft and the weft coafts of Africa and the adjacent iflands, it 
commands a ready communication at all feafons of the year. 
A place fo fituated, juft half way between England and India, 
in a temperate and wholefome climate, and produdtive of re- 
frefliments of every defcription, would naturally be fuppofed to 
hold out fuch irrefiftible advantages to the Eaft India Company, 
not only by Its happy pofition and local afcendancy, but alfo 
by the means it affords of opening a new market and interme- 
diate depofitary for their trade and commodities, that they 
would have been glad to purchafe, at any price, an acquifition 
of fuch immenfe importance ; and that fuch great advantages, 
however they might be blinked by fome or unknown to others, 
would fpeedily have forced a general conviction of their value, 
in fpite of real ignorance or affedted indifference. 
One might alfo have fuppofed that the pofleflion of the Cape 
of Good Hope would have fuggefted itfelf to the Eaft India 
Company as a place which would have removed many, if not all, 
of the difficulties that occurred to them, on the renewal of their 
privileges in 1793) when a depot for their recruits in Britain 
was in contemplation. The principal regulations propofed for 
fuch depofitary of troops, as contained in " Hijloric View of 
*' Plans for Britffo India^"* were the following : — " That the age 
" of the Company's recruits fliould be from twelve to fifteen 
** or twenty, becaufe at this period of life, the conftitution was 
" found 
