strong
arm of Great Britain to seize the Cape in 1795 should have been as
welcome as rescue to a wreck. Then for the first time a power took hold
of the way station of East Indian trade, and its straggling offshoots,
that had the strength and the skill and the far-reaching conception to
do more than repress savage onslaughts
and defend grazing grounds, — to open great mines, to convert arid
karroos into irrigated plantations, to extend the network of railways,
and stretch in time the steel band of civilization across the darkest
zone of Africa. This Britannia has done and is doing, either in her
imperial way, or by the hands of the sons who have labored to make her
greater.
But
the coming of this saving and transforming power had the appearance, at
the time, of a hostile attack. The Netherlands, in 1793, were wholly
under the thumb of the new French republic, and war was declared
against Great Britain through controlling French influence. There had
been some revolting against the further collection
