Note 50 — Part II
Reading edition
22. The lack of a port on the coast of Africa as a landing-place for our ships is another of the difficulties which our navigation by way of Cape Good Hope may encounter; but our friendly relations with the court of Francia will open to us, without doubt, free entrance to the port of Mauritius. With a knowledge, too, of the ports on the said coast of Africa, we can establish ourselves where we think it best to, as the Dutch have done; or we can find some island, like that of Santa Elena,50 which the English occupy, or those of San Matheo and Acension, which serve the Portuguese for a way-station.