During the Napoleonic War when Napoleon invaded the Dutch Republic and established the Batavian Republic, the Stadtholder of the Dutch Republic fled to England and requested the British government to annex all the Dutch colonies. The British did that and after the Napoleonic War ended, they returned all the colonies to the Dutch except the Cape Colony. Why did they choose the Cape Colony which was merely a settler colony where European ships take a break in their journey towards the Orient rather than the more Lucrative Spice Islands in the Dutch East Indies?
The Cape Colony was strategically located for many ships' journeys to India and Asia in general and so was developed as a refueling point for European ships. What was unique about the Cape was its Mediterranean climate that made European-style agriculture and animal husbandry possible. Additionally, it was only lightly populated by non-agricultural Khoisan people who kept cattle and sheep of their own, which to the Dutch and later English confirmed their refueling station hopes for the Cape. Similar to the Native Americans and Australian Aboriginals, the Khoisan had little immunity to smallpox and so offered little longterm resistance to European settlement. The Spice Islands had settled agricultural people who were immune to smallpox.