The Cape of Good Hope

Demy 8vo; new burgundy cloth, with gilt lettering to upper cover; pp. [203-246]. Article excerpted from the 'Quarterly Review', Vol. XXII, No. XLIII, in an attractive new binding, with new endpapers. Very good condition. (Mendelssohn II, p. 790) The article opens with a list of eight works relating to the Cape of Good Hope, each of which is touched upon in the review that follows. Almost without exception, the author finds much to criticise in the picture painted of the Cape of Good Hope, and, while convinced of the merits of the Colony, he is justifiably concerned that the new immigrants from Britain may be misinformed and ill-prepared for the trials of life in southern Africa. He is particularly scathing in his treatment of Richard Barnard Fisher's 'The Importance of the Cape of Good Hope, as a Colony to Great Britain', accusing Fisher of "assertions for which he has no authority" and "an extraordinary degree of ignorance respecting those very objects which immediately surrounded him." In this view, the reviewer has the support of Theal, who stated regarding Fisher's book: "No greater nonsense was ever inflicted on a reader." (Mendelssohn I, p. 547) The essential argument is that 'none but the fair side of the picture has been exhibited; that no discriminating hand has been stretched forth to separate the bad from the good, and no warning voice lifted up to forbid unfounded expectation, nor prevent improvident adventure.' (p. 211) According to Dorothy Rivett-Carnac, "Those who had sold everything they possessed to provide themselves with capital and who had staked their lives on a future in an unknown land, were not easily discouraged and as soon as notice was received from the Navy Transport Board confirming the place and time of embarkation, roads to London, to Portsmouth, Bristol, Liverpool and Cork were thronged with travellers in every kind of conveyance and some even walking from north, south, east and west as they struggled to reach the ships." (Thus Came the English in 1820, p. 26)