SOUTHERN AFRICA. 
To England the Cape Is more valuable as a point of ef- 
fedual fecurlty to her Indian trade and fettlements than as a 
place of annoyance to other nations, or as to the means it af- 
fords of interrupting their commercial concerns. The un- 
bounded credit of the Eaft India Company, the immenfity of 
its capital employed, the fuperior quality of Britifh manufactures, 
and the low rate at which they can be afforded in foreign mar- 
kets, will always enfure to them the beft part of the trade to 
India and China, and give to England a preference before the 
other maritime powers of Europe, or that of America. No 
naval power, therefore, except France, could feel any jealoufy, 
nor entertain reafonable grounds of objedtion againft the Cape 
becoming a fettlement of the Britifh empire j but every one of 
them are very materially interefted, and the Americans more 
efpecially, that it fhould not fall into the hands of France ; who 
would not fail, on every flight occafion, to aim at excluding 
her numerous Ihlps from the Indian Seas, and endeavour to 
annihilate her growing commerce in the eaft; w^hilft to England, 
I again repeat it, the Cape is to be confidered as chiefly important 
on account of the advantages it holds forth as a point of fecurity 
to her valuable poffefliions in the eaft, againft the defigns of aa 
ambitious and implacable enemy. 
We have already, indeed, experienced the truth of this re- 
mark. The Ifles of France and Bourbon were rendered ufelefs 
to the French during the late war, and incapable of giving to us 
the leaft annoyance in the Eaftern Seas, from the moment that 
their fhips of war and privateers had been deftroyed by our 
cruizers from the Cape. They were neither able to fend troops 
to 
