Note 20 — HISTORICAL RECORD (continued 2)

The lofty promontory of Southern Africa received the name of “Cabo da Boa Esperança” (Cape of Good Hope), from King John II. of Portugal, upon its discovery, in 1487, by Bartholomew Diaz, in consequence of a good hope being entertained of discovering the long-wished for passage to India, which ten years afterwards was realised by Vasco de Gama, who doubled the Cape, and continued the voyage to the Malabar coast. For more than a century the Cape continued as a temporary rendezvous for European mariners. In July 1620, Humphrey Fitzherbert and Andrew Shillinge, two of the East India Company’s commanders, took formal possession of the place, in the name of King James I., but no settlement was formed. In 1650 the government of the Netherlands resolved to colonize the Cape, which remained in possession of the Dutch until July 1795, when it was taken by the British for the Prince of Orange, but was restored to its former possessors by the Peace of Amiens, concluded in 1802. It was again captured by the British in 1806, in whose possession it has since remained.