CHAPTER XXIII - MR. VAN RIEBEEK'S ADMINISTRATION—(continued)

Summary

The conclusion of peace with their great maritime rival enabled the Company to send out this season without risk a large fleet to India, and in a short time no fewer than twenty-one vessels called at Table Bay on their way eastward. All were supplied with vegetables in abundance. Some of these ships had lost as many as fifty men on the passage, and when they dropped anchor had over a hundred helpless with scurvy. It would have been impossible for a little state like the United Provinces to keep great fleets afloat with such a terrible loss of life occurring year after year, if it had not been that the lower ranks of the service were very largely recruited from foreign countries. The advantage of the Cape as a port of refreshment can hardly be realised without a knowledge of the ravages caused by scurvy in those days. The fresh provisions obtained here saved hundreds of lives yearly, and the detention was not so very great, for it was usual to put the feeblest men ashore and to take healthy ones in their place. The officers, in order to gain the premium of fifty pounds sterling for making the passage to Batavia within six months, at first sometimes ran past without calling, but when this became known the temptation was removed by adding to the six months the time spent here.