SOUTHERN AFRICA, 309 
inclined to consider as an improper person to remain in the 
settlement. 
If the experiment should succeed, the obvious result would 
be an exclusive trade to India and China vested in the Eng*- 
lish East India Company. The commerce carried on by the 
Americans, their only dangerous rivals at present, would be 
diverted into another channel, or, at all events, would suffer 
a considerable reduction. Should the Dutch ever rise ao-ain 
as an independent nation, they would find it expedient to 
court the friendship and alliance of Great Britain in the 
East ; and, in the present low state of their finances, would 
be well satisfied with the exclusive privilege of the spice- 
trade, and with any portion of the carrying-trade that Great 
Britain might think proper to assign to them. Any encroach- 
ment on the part of this nation might easily be checked by a 
refusal of the usual accommodations at the Cape, without 
which their trade and navigation to the Eastern Seas must 
totally be superseded. If, at a peace, they are to become a 
dependency of France, directly or indirectly, the Cape in our 
hands will. always enable us to cramp their commerce to the 
eastward. As to France, having neither credit nor capital, 
without shipping and without manufactures, its trade to the 
East will, in the nature of things, be inconsiderable for a 
long time. Her first object will be to send out troops and 
stores to endeavour to destroy, at some future period, our 
trade and possessions in India, wliich she has long regarded 
with envy and jealousy — and we have already shewn how far 
the Cape may be instrumental in checking or in forwarding, 
