SOUTHERN AFRICA. 297 
infallibly have proved ruinous to the concerns of the English 
United Company of merchants trading to the East Indies. 
The sales of Leadenhall-strcet would have suffered beyond 
calculation ; a speedy termination would have been the con- 
sequence to their monopolizing system ; whilst, excepting a 
few English adventurers trading under neutral flags, the Eng- 
lish nation would be the last to benefit by -such a measure. 
The Danes, Swedes, Spaniards, Portugueze and, above all 
others, the Americans, would soon find their advantage in pur- 
chasing cargoes of India and China goods at the Cape of 
Good Hope, at a moderate advance and without duties, in 
preference of applying to the London market, where they are 
liable to duties or puzzled with drawbacks ; or rather than 
prosecute the long and expensive A'oy age through the Eastern 
Seas. The Americans, indeed, and the English adventurers, 
would become the great carriers between India and China, and 
the Cape of Good Hope. 
In like manner it is to be apprehended that, if at a general 
peace the Dutch should be allow ed to keep possession of the 
settlement, the French, having neither credit nor capital of 
their own, will not only, by means of the Cape, consolidate 
a force in the Isles of France and Bourbon, to be ready to act 
against us and to disturb the tranquillity of our Indian settle- 
ments, but that they will likewise oblige the Dutch to allow 
an emporium of Eastern produce at this extremity of 
Africa for the supply of foreign nations, and particularly 
of the Spaniards and Portugueze on the Brazil coast, to 
the prejudice of the interests of the British East India 
Company. 
VOL. II. Q Q 
