SOUTHERN AFRICA. ijt 
It was not, indeed, without a full conviction of its great 
utility to England, as well as of encumbrance to the Dutch, 
by the enormous expence it occasioned, that Mr. Dundas 
was induced, in the considerations on the treaty between 
Great Britain and Holland, transmitted to the British ambas- * 
sador at the Hague in 1787, to propose to them the cession 
of certain stations in India, which were to them of little 
weight, either in a political or commercial point of view. 
The reasoning employed on this occasion was, " That the 
" Cape was invaluable in the hands of a maritime power, be- 
" ing really and truly the key to India, which no hostile fleet 
" could pass or repass, as the length of the previous voyage, 
" either from India or Europe, must have disabled such a 
" fleet, in a certain degree, before it could reach the Cape— 
" that it was the interest of Holland itself that the Cape and 
" Trincomalee should belong to Great Britain ; because Hol- 
" land must either be the ally of Britain or of France in 
" India ; and because Great Britain only can be an useful 
*' ally of Holland in the East — that the Dutch were not able 
" to protect their settlements in that quarter, and Britain 
" fully competent to their protection — that the Cape and 
" Trincomalee were not commercial establishments, and that 
" the maintenance of them was burthensome and expensive 
" to the Dutch — but that the force required to protect the 
*' British Indian possessions would render the defence of the 
" Dutch settlements much less so to Britain/' 
The Earl of Macartney was not less convinced of the 
policy, nor less persuaded of the readiness, of the Dutch to 
leave the Cape in our hands, provided they were allowed to 
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