SOUTHERN AFRICA. 255 
squadron, during the last war, was found to be fully adequate 
to guard the passage round the Cape, and effectual ly to de- 
feat any attempt of an enemy to disturb the peace of India, 
as well as to prevent them from giving the least annoyance 
to our trade in the Indian Seas. Not a single ship of the 
line of the enemy ventured to double the Cape in six years, 
much less did he venture to risk any attempt to throw troops 
into the colonies or the continent of India. If indeed foreign 
ships, in their voyage from Europe to India, find it necessary 
to refresh their crews at the Cape, how much more urgent 
would the necessity be when the same ships were crowded 
with troops. The French, in all their former wars, in the short 
voyage to the Isles of France and Bourbon, refreshed and re- 
fitted at the Cape. These islands, as I have already ob- 
served, instead of being able to victual a fleet, barely furnish 
provisions sufficient for the inhabitants and a small garrison. 
But by the supply of provisions and naval stores sent to them 
from the Cape, SufFrein was enabled to maintain his ground 
in the Indian Seas, without which he would very soon have 
been obliged to give up the contest. In the late war our 
cruizers from the Cape kept the Southern Ocean completely 
clear of the enemy's ships, and allowed the Indian squadron 
to make such choice of their cruizing ground, that between 
the two, not a French Irigate escaped, nor scarcely a single 
privateer remained on the Mauritius station for some time 
before the close of the war. Our Indian squadron was re- 
duced to a mere nothing, whereas it is now considered neces- 
sary to keep in those seas eight sail of the line and two Com- 
manders in Chief, half of which force might be v/ithdrawii 
and kept with greater advantage and much less expence at 
