PRESENT SITUATION AND FUTURE PROSPECTS OF THE DUTCH COLONIES IN THE EAST.

THE situation of the Dutch Colonies in the East has been for some time past exceedingly precarious and disturbed; and, as many British interests are involved in the fate of this part of the Oriental world, a brief sketch of their actual condition, and future prospects, drawn from recent and authentic sources of information, may be useful.

Since the proclamations issued by the Government of Java early in 1824, levying additional duties on all articles of cotton and woollen manufacture imported from foreign countries, the commerce of the island has been on the decline; for these duties, amounting to 25, and in many cases to 35 per cent., on an arbitrary valuation at Batavia, have operated sensibly against the consumption of the principal articles of British trade. In the face of such taxation, united to falling markets for coffee, which proved the principal article in return, it was no longer possible to carry on the trade with advantage. About the same period, the decline in the revenue, arising from various causes, began to produce embarrassment in the finances of the Colony; when the functionaries at the head of affairs, being placed at such a distance from the Mother Country, resorted first to measures of temporary relief, and subsequently to expedients, which have been attended with acts of the grossest injustice and violation of the rights of property.

The Island of Java is under the particular administration and paternal care of his Majesty the King of the Netherlands, whose attachment to this Colony is just in proportion to its productiveness to his own private revenue, as he is notoriously the most avaricious monarch in Europe. By this rule, we may find some clue to the neglect and mismanagement of his Oriental possessions, which have of late proved any thing but profitable to the coffers of his Majesty or his subjects. Whether the late Governor-General, the Baron Van der Capellan, (an excellent private character,) had not sufficiently pressed upon his Majesty the urgent wants of his Government, or that the Parent State had been backward in supplying its aid, it is certain that, at the commencement of the year 1825, the greatest distress was experienced in the finances. The circulation was overloaded with paper currency, and yet no means existed to answer the demands, on the Treasury, but the continued issue of Treasury-notes, as they were called, bearing an interest of 9 per cent. per annum, which is the ordinary rate of the Colony. These notes soon accummulated to five or six millions of rupees or guilders, (about half a million sterling,) besides many unsatisfied claims, which were postponed on every sort of pretext by the Finance Depart

ment. Although partial aid was obtained from Bengal, it was evident that nothing effectual could be derived from this quarter, when the Burmese war occasioned a great demand for money and the jealous policy of the Government at home being opposed to obtaining even assistance from the British. Effectual relief could therefore be expected only from the Netherlands, and from them it was anxiously looked for.

This was the situation of Java in July 1825, when the insurrection broke out in the Native provinces, seated in the very heart of the Island, and at a period when the military force was dispersed on distant expeditions to Macassar, Borneo, and Sumatra. The alarm of the Government was manifest: there were probably not 1200 European troops in the whole Island, and not nearly that number disposable to meet the danger. Had the Princes of Djocjocarta and the other Chiefs in revolt, acted with any sort of promptitude and energy at this crisis, the Dutch would have been massacred or expelled from Java, and it would have cost them many years of expensive effort to reconquer and re-establish their possessions. But a want of these essential qualities in the Native Chiefs, of combination in their movements, added to the cowardice of their followers, who generally abandoned their leaders when seriously attacked, limited their operations to the burning of villages, the destruction of the cultivated country, and the harassing of their enemies, the Dutch, to whom this mode of warfare proved more destructive and expensive than a more vigorous and bloody contest. Fortunately for them, they had secured, in the outset, possession of the person of the Emperor of Solo, and, by consequence, the neutrality, if not the co-operation, of his numerous subjects.. A temporary force was raised from among the Natives, principally from the Island of Madura, and a militia organised at the three principal cities of Batavia, Samarang and Sourabaya, consisting of all the European and Christian inhabitants capable of bearing arms, -measures which in some degree checked the spirit of revolt, and prevented its extending to the settlements on the coast. The war, however, in the interior lingered for want of means to carry it on; and the disturbed districts, instead of being a resource to the Government, ravaged occasionally by each of the contending parties, became a heavy charge on the already overburdened finances.

The calls for money under such circumstances became more urgent, the paper was increased by fresh issues; silver disappeared, or was only to be procured at an enormous premium; while the long-expected relief from Europe seemed to be held firmer in his Majesty's possession as the wants of the colony became more pressing. The Government was obliged to draw bills on Holland, which were negociated with difficulty and at a heavy sacrifice; but money I was necessary for the subsistence of the troops, and the tardy

measures of the Government at home, left the colonial administration no other resource.

Thus, the whole aspect of affairs in Java became changed. The few earlier years of the Baron Van der Capellan's government had opened with much fairer prospects: a flourishing revenue; commerce active, both in the interior and exterior, under a moderate system of duties; the Natives rich and happy; while agriculture was extending itself; these were the fruits of a liberal policy, which, had it been left to work, would, under the peculiarly favourable position of these islands for commerce with the East and with Europe, have enriched the mother country, while it spread wealth, comfort, and civilization over these extensive regions.

But when will kings and governors learn their true interests!— to let their subjects and their trade alone, to follow the course of nature and events, instead of attempting to force and to lead them; to foster and encourage, and, without extortion, to be content with the fair dues of the state? A grasping and jealous disposition has, however, distinguished the Dutch in all ages; and here, a grinding system of taxation, combined with all manner of discouragement to enterprising settlers of other nations, possessing capital and industry, soon altered the face of affairs. There can be no doubt that his Majesty of the Netherlands and the European Government were the authors of the new system, opposed as it seemed to be to every liberal principle, as well as to the disposition of the Baron Van der Capellan. The object was, to engross for the Dutch nation the exclusive trade of their colonies, which they had neither the ability nor the industry to carry on properly. In the ardent pursuit of this engrossing and monopolizing spirit, his Majesty will gain his object of driving out the foreign settler, but he will acquire also a ruined and disturbed possession, a load of debt, a people dispirited and depressed by a series of misfortunes, and the total extinction of that commerce, which once diffused prosperity aud cheerfulness through the most remote districts of this beautiful island.

The period of service of the late Governor-General expired in 1823, but was continued, at the desire of his Majesty, until 1825, when it became necessary, from the entire difference of opinion existing between the Java Government and the Ministry of the Colonies in Europe, to recal him. The orders to this effect arrived during the very height of the disturbances in the interior; they were, however, positive, and were carried into effect. Accordingly, on the 1st of January last, when the government was handed over to General Dekock, a very worthy man, who assumed the title of Acting Governor-General, leaving it to be presumed that some other and superior authority would shortly appear to take the reins. The Baron Van der Capellan embarked early in February, on board one of the English East India Company's ships from China, to return to Europe after about ten years' absence; leaving behind

him a very general sentiment of respect and regard for his person and character, but, at the same time leaving the island itself in the most deplorable condition, politically and commercially.

The very same day that witnessed the Baron's departure, brought to Batavia a new authority, under the denomination of Commissioner-General, in the person of the Count Dubres Gesigneis, a half Fleming, half Frenchman, together with what was much more important and requisite, a supply of about five millions of guilders. The nature of the duties and powers of this Commissioner were the subjects of general speculation, and were soon known to be absolute and paramount. Immediately after his landing, a proclamation appeared from the Acting Governor and the Commissioner himself, conveying the intelligence that he possessed all the authority and power which his Majesty himself could exercise if personally present. Much interest was excited as his first measures began to be developed; but this interest was soon heightened, and added to one universal sentiment of indignation and astonishment among the poor colonists, when the character and description of the reform which he commenced came to be understood. It can scarcely be credited that such measures were the offspring of his Majesty's paternal care and solicitude for his colonial subjects, although positive reference is made in the proclamations to particular articles of the secret instructions of the King himself!

In the outset it was frankly avowed, that one of the principal objects of his mission was to economise; and he prepared all the civil servants of the island for the pecuniary sacrifices to which indispensable retrenchments would subject them. These it was notorious could ill bear reduction, for the Dutch civil servants are probably the worst paid in the world, considering the expenses to which they are inevitably subjected in the colonies, and the responsibilities of their posts. Their number, however, may doubtless be reduced with advantage, when the cumbrous system of forms and multiplicity of documents is changed, and a more efficient and simple procedure introduced. His first proclamation related to the currency, which, as already observed, was in the most miserable condition, overcharged with all sorts of paper. He regulated by the new measure the relative proportions and smaller denominations of each description of coin in circulation, which had been established previously upon a most incorrect principle, and the colonists were not even much startled at his reducing the Indian guilder, which was issued at thirty stivers, to twenty-four stivers, a more suitable proportion to the actual value of the coin, although a positive loss of six stivers to those who had exchanged their dollars originally for the guilders brought out by the first Dutch Commissioners. His second proclamation proved more satisfactory-calling in all the notes of one and five guilders in circulation, which were to be exchanged for silver. All this was beneficial; as

these notes amounted to about three millions of guilders, and such a measure might be supposed to relieve the currency to that extent. But the specie had not been ten days in circulation when it disappeared, from the united operations of hoarders and exporters, and soon advanced to fourteen and sixteen per cent. premium, leaving the community in as great distress as ever for small change. The third proclamation, as it related to another portion of the currency, began to show the cloven foot. Issues of pieces of Japan copper, of one and two stivers denomination, called bunks or bungals, which had been made by the former Government in time of demand for small change, were called in to be paid off-not by the nominal value at which they were issued, but by weightnamely, one guilder per pound, payable at the Treasury in paper, or doits, at the rate of 100 of the latter to the guilder, instead of 120, the regular and established usage. The loss of the public, by this most unjust and arbitrary proceeding, was forty per cent. at least to the holders of bunks in the first instance, and twenty per cent. more on the doits; a piece of dishonesty, which, as it affected principally the lower classes, nothing can justify, and which would have disgraced the reign of the French Marshall Daendels.

The Treasury notes, bearing nine per cent. interest, have already been mentioned. These were limited by proclamation to five and a half millions of guilders, but really exceeded six millions, about 500,000l. sterling. On a sudden a decree was issued bearing date the 27th of March last, by which the interest was reduced to six per cent., without any alternative of payment to the unfortunate holders, as might naturally have been looked for, and as the very purport of the notes themselves gave grounds to expect. A more barefaced violation of every known principle of justice and good faith, on the part of the Government, never was attempted. The plea of necessity is not urged, nor did there exist any idea or means of paying off these notes; but, without notice or option, a man is compelled to take six per cent. or nothing, where the Government had promised him nine per cent. What guarantee has the holder that the next Gazette shall not reduce his six per cent. to three, and the following one to nothing? In fact, another paring of both principle and interest, immediately, and on the same date, followed this proclamation, which, professing to discharge these promissory notes and all other acknowledged claims on Government, offers the holders certain bonds called "Amertisatee Syndicaat," established in the Netherlands, which bonds bear four and a half per cent. in Holland, and are at present at the nominal price of ninetyfour-here is one and a half per cent. reduction of interest more, besides the six per cent. already taken off the principal !

Thus has Dutch credit, which once stood first amongst the nations of Europe, and has even very lately been considered next in character to that of Great Britain, been reduced, by the acts of King