Robert Percival was a captain in the 18th Irish Regiment who travelled to southern Africa in 1795 as part of the British expedition to capture the Cape Colony (now part of South Africa) from the Dutch. The invasion took place in order to prevent the colony from falling under the control of revolutionary France, the French having occupied the Netherlands in late 1794, and to ensure the security of the shipping lanes to and from India.
Percival remained in the Cape Colony until Britain gave control of it back to Dutch authorities at the 1802 Treaty of Amiens. He published this account of the colony two years later in which he criticised policies pursued by Dutch settlers (Afrikaners) and their treatment of the Indigenous population. The book also remarked on the climate in South Africa and argued for the resumption of British control of the land. The Cape Colony was reoccupied by British forces in 1806 and in 1814, the territory was formally ceded by the Dutch.
Despite the criticisms of Afrikaner treatment of Indigenous groups detailed by writers such as Percival, British colonial authorities followed similar policies in South Africa and on the establishment of the Union of South Africa in 1910, Apartheid legislation, which enforced segregation and denied Black South Africans their rights, was employed by successive governments. This legislation was repealed in the country in 1991 and the first multiracial elections were held in 1994.