CAPE OF GOOD HOPE. 45 
alarmed, when a large body of the former are well disciplined, and 
have arms in their hands. Yet, from all I have learned of the 
gentleness of the Hottentot character, I believe that their fears are 
groundless, and that they w^ill receive no injury, unless they be- 
come the aggressors. If indeed the British should attack the Cape 
again, I have no doubt that the Hottentot corps would be rejoiced 
to join a nation, to whom they are indebted for their liberation. 
The designs of the extraordinary man who rules over France, and 
who seems to place no bounds to his ambition but the empire of the 
world, in my opinion, render the Cape of particular importance. 
Whether it may be his object first to attack the British power in 
India, or to secure the Spanish possessions in South America, the 
Cape will become an important position for the attainment of 
either. He can there, during peace, collect, by small degrees, a 
force that may at the commencement, or even before a declaration 
of war, fall with an irresistible force on his unsuspecting prey. The 
salubrity of the air will season his soldiers, and enable them to 
bear the heat of a tropical climate ; and until they shall be wanted, 
they may be maintained at a much smaller expense than in any 
other part of the world. I have no doubt that this was in the con- 
templation of Buonaparte, when he placed the Cape ostensibly in 
the hands of the Dutch, but, in reality, completely under his own 
control. I must ever regret that he had not to negociate with those 
enlightened statesmen, who had ever felt and proclaimed the value 
of the Cape, and who would probably have seen into his real motives 
for demanding it, and have firmly, and, I have no doubt, suc- 
cessfully, resisted so dangerous a cession. The civil and military 
expenditure of the Cape has exceeded the revenue from £^00, 000 ; 
