An Account of the Cape of Good Hope; containing an Historical View of its original Settlement by the Dutch, its Capture by the

First edition, first state (pp. xii, 339). Quarto (28 cm) in quarter leather over marbled boards; gilt titles and decoration to spine; edges rubbed, first few pages toned; otherwise clean, bright and sound throughout. 

Theal was not an admirer of the captain who presumed, based on an acquaintance with region amounting to but a few months, to denigrate the Dutch as stiff-necked, intractable, and wholly unable to control the troublesome Boers. Percival’s solution? Bring in the British Army and set things straight, just as they had in 1795, with Percival in the van. As it happened, they were busy elsewhere in the new century (Mendelssohn).