Donald MOODIE. An Inquiry  Cape of Good Hope: A.S. Robertson, Capetown and J.Richardson, London,

 Cape of Good Hope: A.S. Robertson, Capetown and J.Richardson, London, 1841. 29 + 8 + 48 pp., bound in recent green cloth preserving the original green card wrappers, with dampstains and foxing on the original upper cover, foxing on the preliminary pages.

"In an address to Lord John Russell which prefaces the work, Mr. Moodie observes that the compilation of the Cape Records had been commenced by the instructions of one of Lord John's predecessors in office, at the public cost of the Colony, but that subsequently the subsidy was withdrawn and the publication had to depend upon mere casual support, and he states that whether the work will ever be completed may in a great measure depend upon the light in which the subject may be viewed by the Secretary of State for the Colonies. The volume contains a 'Memorandum: for the information of the subscribers for the publication of the Papers collected from the Cape Records, relating to the Native Tribes', a pamphlet of 29 pages which gives some particulars of the progress of the work, and the opposition aroused in certain quarters to the publication of the Records, which, it was contended, had been mutilated and misquoted for political purposes. The quoted strictures of the Cape Commercial Advertiser, and the correspondence with Captain Stockenstrom, Sir B. Durban, Lord Glenelg, and others, throw considerable light upon the animus exhibited on the subject, and upon the arguments used for and against the continuance of the work. The next portion of the publication is entitled Report of the Committee to the Subscribers of the Fund for Printing and Publishing the Documentary Evidence relative to the Intercourse of the Colonists and Cape Government with the Native Tribes. By the Hon. H. Cloete, Ls. LL.D., and Lieutenant-Colonel Bird, late Colonial Secretary (Second Edition)," and is a document of eight pages which discusses the previous mutilation of Parliamentary papers, and recommends that Mr. Moodie should be re-engaged to complete his work. The last portion consists of forty eight pages, entitled Remarks upon some of the Results developed by the publication of a Portion of the Cape Records, relative to the Condition and Treatment of the Native Tribes of Southern Africa, by a Member of the late Committee, which serves to show that the colonists had been maligned and misrepresented with reference to their relations with the natives." (Mendelssohn (Sidney) South African Bibliography volume 2 page 46)