TRAVELS IN 
t)f a third of the expences of bread and fait provifions, which 
v/ould, at leaft, by thefe means be effeded, muft certainly be 
an objed in fo vafl: a concern as theirs, and more than coun- 
terbalance the fuppofed great expence of fupporting the fettle- 
ment. 
If, in the fecond place, we confider the Cape as a naval ftation, 
commanding the entrance into the Indian Seas, its importance, 
in this relped, will be no lefs obvious. The prefent fuperiority 
of our navy would render a fmall fquadron fully adequate to 
guard the paffage round the Cape, and effectually to defeat any 
attempt of an enemy to difturb the peace of India, as well as to 
prevent them from giving the leaft annoyance to our trade in 
the Indian Seas. If foreign fliips, in their voyage from Europe 
to India, find it necelTary to refrefti their crews at the Cape, how 
much more urgent would the neceffity be when the fame fliips 
were crowded with troops. The French, in all their former wars, 
in the fliort voyage to the Ifles of France and Bourbon, re- 
frefhed and refitted at the Cape. Thefe iflands, as I have 
already obferved, inftead of being able to vidlual a fleet, barely 
furnifli provifions fuflicient for the inhabitants and a fmall gar- 
rifon. By the fupply of provifions and naval ftores fent to them 
from the Cape, Suffrein was enabled to maintain his ground in 
the Indian Seas, without which he would very foon have been 
obliged to give up the conteft. In the late war our cruizers 
from the Cape kept the Southern Ocean completely clear of the 
enemy's fliips, and allowed the Indian fquadron to make fuch 
choice of their cruizing ground, that between the two, not a 
French frigate efcaped, nor fcarcely a fingle privateer remained 
on 
