SOUTHERN AFRICA. 
fixpence, which, however, they had prudence enough to de- 
cline. The fum brought into the government treafury by- 
tolerating this monopoly, averaged about feventy thoufand rix- 
dollars annually. But in the event of the Cape falling again 
into our hands, which fooner or later muft happen, if it be an 
obje£t to fecure our Indian poflcflions, it would be wife to fup- 
ply this part of the revenue by fome other means. 
" Government likewife derived other profits befides thofe which 
accrued from the cheapnefs of the rations. The Deputy Pay- 
mafter-General drew bills on his Majefty's Paymafters-General 
in Englard, in exchange for the paper currency of the colony, 
in which all the contingent and extraordinary expences of the 
garrifon were paid. Thefe bills, except in the firft few months 
when there was not yet any demand for remittances, and v^hen, 
perhaps, their credit was not fully eftablilhed in the minds of 
the Dutch, always bore a premium againft the paper, varying 
from five to thirty per cent., but fixed, for the grcateft part of 
the time, at twenty per cent. They would, indeed, have ad- 
vanced to a much higher rate ; for the merchant, unable to make 
his remittances to any great extent in colonial produce, or in In- 
dia goods, which, if permitted, might have been injurious to the 
interefts of the Eaft India Company, was under the neceffity of 
purchafing thefe bills. Lord Macartney, however, confidered 
it expedient to fix the premium at twenty per cent., deeming it 
right that government bills fhould bear the higheft premium of 
bills that might be in the market, but, at the fame time, not to 
proceed to fuch a height as to become oppreffive either to the 
merchant or the public : So that if the ration was fupplied to \ 
. -i z 2 govern- 
