SOUTHERN AFRICA. 
321 
The fituatlon, the fecurity, and the conveniences of the 
Knyfna^ are admirably adapted for carrying into execution a 
fifhery on fuch a plan. Every material either is, or might 
be, produced upon the fpot for equipping their fhips. The 
land is here the very beft that the colony affords, and it fo hap- 
pens, that the fix months in which it might be dangerous to 
fifh on this coaft, are the fuitable feafon for cultivating the 
land. Such fmall craft might alfo find their advantage in run- 
ning down to the iflands in the South Seas and picking up a 
cargo of feals, and thus anticipate the Americans, who, by 
means of their fiihery and ginfeng, and the produce of their 
lumber cargoes, have worked themfelves, as we have already 
had occafion to notice, into a valuable portion of the China 
trade. Whereas if oil taken on the coaft by the fmall craft of 
the inhabitants of the Cape, which might alfo include oil taken 
by foreign fifhermen and exchanged by them for India or China 
goods, were admitted to entry in Britifh bottoms into Great 
Britain at a low colonial duty, the foreign fifhermen, v/ho 
never can be excluded from fiihing on the coafls of Africa, 
might find a market for their oil there. And the Americans 
would, probably, under fuch regulations, find it their advantage 
to fupply themfelves with Indian produce at the Cape, a.nd ex- 
tend their fifhery only when they could not obtain a vent for 
their native produce of fklns, drugs, and lumber. The fitua- 
lion of the Cape, properly ftocked,. might thus be an important 
dep6t for Britifh trade with America, and, perhaps, fuperfede 
expenfive voyages to China in their fmall fliips. This, how- 
ever, is mere mattter of opinion and not of fa<il. That the 
VOL. II. T T plan 
