SOUTHERN AFRICA. 231 
In this manner the Englifli, the Dutch, and the Portugueze, 
continued, for more than a century, to refrefh at the Cape, with- 
out any defign, on the part of the two former, of appropriating 
the foil ; until the year 1620, when, as I have before obferved, 
Andrew Shillinge and Humphrey Fitzherbert, two commanders 
of two fleets of Englifh fhips bound for Surat and Bantam, took 
a formal polFeffion of the foil for, and in the name of. King 
James of Great Britain, becaufe they difcovered that the Dutch 
intended to eftablilh a colony there the following year ; and 
" becaufe they thought it better that the Dutch, or any other 
" nation whatfoever, fhould be his Majefty's fubjeds in this 
" place, than that his fubjeds fhould be fubjed to them or any 
" other." It was not, however, until a period of more than 
thirty years had expired after this event, that the reprefentations 
of Van Riebek, ftating the richnefs of th€ foil, the mildnefs of 
the climate, the advantage it would give to the Dutch, as a co- 
lony, over other nations, whofe fliips would all be obliged to 
touch there, and, above all, the barrier it would afford to their 
Indian dominions, prevailed on the diredors of the Dutch Eaft 
India Company to form a regular eflablifhment at the Cape. 
Their original intention was to limit their pofTeffions to the 
Cape peninfula, and the two bays that are divided by the iflh- 
mus ; confidering it only, as it had hitherto been, as a place for 
refrefhing and refitting their fhips. But the number of fettlers 
that crept in, from time to time, made it neceffary to crofs the 
iflhmus, and, by prefents and promifes, to obtain from the na- 
tives the ceffion of a trad of land to which they gave the name of 
Hottentot's Holland. The natives, it would feem, had no idea 
of 
