SOUTHERN AFRICA. 
227 
the fame fleet fuffered ftill more, the Hoenkoop having burled 
one hundred and fifty-eight ; the William Vth two hundred and 
thirty j and the Jonge Samuel of Zeeland one hundred and three 
men ! 
It may be confidered, indeed, as next to a phyfical impofribility, 
for a Dutch fhip to run from the Texel to Batavia without 
flopping. The poffeffion we held of their old half-way houfe, 
the Cape, was fo fevere a blow to their navigation in the Eaftern 
Seas, that, after the capture of Lucas's fleet in Saldanha Bay, 
there was not, in the courfe of five years, a fmgle Dutch fliip 
of any defcription to the fouthward of the line. The conveni- 
ence of refrefliing at the Cape is abfolutely neceflary to, and in- 
feparably connected with, the Dutch trade to India. The Spa- 
niards and Portugueze are equally averfe to long paflages, with- 
out refrefliing, as the French and Dutch. The Danes, the 
Swedes, and Americans lefs fo, becaufe their provifions, in. 
'general, are more wholefome, and their fliips more cleanly : yet, 
to all thefe, an intermediate port is always confidered as an ob- 
ject worthy of attention. 
To the Englifli the invervention of a port, in the longeft 
•voyages, is the leaft important ; and many commanders, of late 
years, have been fo little felicitous on this point, as to prefer 
making the run at once, rather than fuffer the delay and impe- 
diment occafioned by calling for refrefliments on the pafl^age. 
The commanders, indeed, of the Britifli fliips, in general, are 
fo well acquainted with the nature of the fixed and periodical 
winds (the Trades and Monfoons), and with making the mofl: 
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