SOUTHERN AFRICA. 267 
impracticable to double the Cape at any great distance from 
jt. Tiie attempt to do it has general]}^ failed, and always been 
attended with the greatest danger of losing the ships, as in 
the instance of the Prince of Wales.. The Experiment from 
China, venturing on the usual track, was captured on the 
edge of the L'Aguilla's Bank. 
Supposing them, however, to have escaped all these dangers; 
admitting them to have passed the island of Manilla, the 
Straits of Malacca and of Sunda, and the Cape of Good Hope; 
there still remains one point against which nothing can pro- 
tect them but a superior fleet. In whatever degree of lati- 
tude the Cape of Good Hope may be doubled, in the home- 
ward-bound passage, all our ships run nearly upon the same 
line to Saint Helena, so nearly, indeed, that I suppose they 
scarcely deviate twenty leagues from the same track. If then 
a squadron of the enemy's ships from the Cape should cruize 
to windvv^ard of this island, and within sight of it, our India 
fleet must necessarily fall into their hands. And on this 
cruizing ground, where the wind is fixed and steady, the water 
smooth, and the weather always fine, the enemy's vessels may 
remain for any length of time. 
The enormous expence, and, indeed, the impracticability 
of affording effective convoys to our Indian trade, under such 
unfavorable circumstances, must be obvious to every one. 
The expence of one effective convoy to be stationed off Saint 
Helena, as long as the Cape remains in the possession of the 
French, to say nothing of the serious inconvenience of de- 
taching ships of war from more im]:)ortant stations, would he 
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