1 
i62 TRAVELS IN 
CHAP. II. 
Importance of the Cape of Good Hope considered as a Military Station, 
W*HE]sr the Prince of Orange had departed from Holland, 
and the subsequent affairs of that nation had rendered it suf- 
ficiently obvious that the majority of the inhabitants of the 
United Provinces were inclined to adopt the revolutionary 
principles of France, it became a measure of precaution, in 
our government, to take immediate possession of the Dutch 
colonies. Among these the Cape of Good Hope claimed the 
earliest attention, being considered as a settlement of too 
great importance to be trusLed in the hands of the Dutch 
colonists, although it was well known that the principal as 
well as the majority of the civil and military officers were in- 
debted to their Prince for the situations they enjoyed in that 
colonial government. 
An expedition was accordingly sent out to take possession 
of the Cape, not however in a hostile manner, but to hold it 
in security for, and in the name of, the Prince of Orange, 
who had furnished letters dated from London to that effect. 
But the misguided people of the colony, having received only 
imperfect accounts of affairs in Holland, and being led to ex- 
pect a French force at the Cape, had already embraced the 
principles of Jacobinism, whose effects were the more to be 
