V 
«74 TRAVELS IN 
I have stated thus much with regard to the opinions that 
have hitherto been held of the importance of the Cape of 
Good Hope to the British trade and settlements in India, at 
a time when we were made to feel the inconvenience of its 
bt mg in the possession of an enemy, or even of a neutral 
power, because a very sensible change of opinion appears to 
have taken place from the very moment it became a de- 
pendency on the British Crown. For it is very certain that 
the Directors of the East India Company did not only assume 
an affected indifference, with regard to this settlement, but 
employed agents to depreciate its value in the House of 
Commons, and endeavoured to discourage the retention of it 
in the most effectual manner they possibly could have thought 
of, by shewing and proving to the world, as they imagined 
they had done, that the possession of the Cape was of no use 
whatsoever to their commerce, or their concerns in India. 
With this view the commanders of all the ships in their em- 
ploy were forbidden, in the most positive terms, to touch at 
the Cape, either in their outward or their homeward bound 
passage, except such, on the return voyage, as were destined 
to supply the settlement with Indian goods. 
But this ill-judged and absurd order defeated itself* 
Though the strength and constitution of English seamen, 
corroborated by wholesome food, may support them on a 
passage from India to England, shortened as it now is by the 
modern improvements in the art of navigation, without the 
necessity of touching at any intermediate port, yet this is not 
the case with regard to the Lascars, or natives of India who. 
