forth. His book bears, of course, many of the marks of haste, both in its composition and arrangement. The latter, in particular, is in many respects faulty. Things are magnified into some importance in the running head of the chapters, or in the general contents of the book, which really have none in themselves; subjects are separated which ought to have been treated of in conjunction; the details are disturbed and disconnected, and the facts are repeated. The style is frequently diffuse, inartificial, and careless. Many documents are given in full which ought to have been abridged; information is presented in the raw state of facts, neither improved by comment, nor wrought with any skill into the tissue of the work. The re flection is often forced upon us that we have here a long book because the author had not time to write a shorter. The "History of Java," we may likewise remark by the way, is a title injudiciously bestowed, as the history of the island only occupies a small portion of one of the volumes, and only two chapters out of eleven, of which the work consists. But notwithstanding these and several other defects that may be pointed out in the course of this article, the account of Java and some of its dependencies here presented to the reader cannot fail to yield both amusement and instruction. The laudable objects which Sir T. Raffles had in view, both as a governor and an author, and the benevolent spirit which characterise his labours in both capacities, compose that charm-that melle soporatam et medicatis frugibus offamwhich must disarm the Cerberus both of literary and political criticism. Indeed we think it would be difficult to find a person who, in the former capacity, has done more good, and, in the latter, has given more information. Raynal complains that he could give no satisfactory account of the commercial concerns or colonial situation of the Dutch East India Company subsequent to the year 1770; and the meagre statements which that lively, ingenious, and diligent inquirer supplies on many other topics connected with Java, show how much Europeans have hitherto been in the dark concerning that interesting portion of the globe. The natural history, the botany, and mineralogy of the island, together with its interior situation, remained entirely unknown and unexplored. The story of the poison tree, which was said to be surrounded with an atmosphere of death, and to aid the despotism of the east, by killing obnoxious persons placed under its shade, celebrated in the poetry of Darwin, and till lately implicitly believed, shows how much we were in want of authentic information. Of the language, the antiquities, the traditional history, or the literary productions of Java, and the connexions which ancient institutions, or anterior worship, and a sacred tongue, established be tween the inhabitants of the Indian Archipelago and those of continental India our knowledge has been next to nothing. The ruins of temples and edifices, adorned with different kinds of architectural ornaments, with images, sculptures, columns, and medals, evincing ancient magnificence, the pomp of a prior religion, and considerable progress in the arts, remained either buried in rubbish, or covered with the luxuriant vegetation of the climate. Those living monuments of the Bramminical worship, the inhabitants of Bali, and of some of the mountainous districts of Java, were as much neglected, or as little questioned about their creed and history, as the ruins to which we have ailuded. The statements about the population, which, as it was a source of gain to the Dutch, we might have expected to be better ascertained, were equally defective and contradictory, some accounts sinking it below a million, others making it three millions, whereas it is really found to amount to nearly five by late surveys. The notices on the condition and history of the Dutch EastIndia possessions given by Valentyn and other early writers, were followed up with no spirit of inquiry either by the Dutch in Holland or the Dutch in Batavia, and their jealous laws of monopoly allowed no opportunities of research to those who would have made a better use of them. The agents of the company, uninstructed and incurious, went out to acquire fortunes, to oppress the natives, to guard their shores against the intrusion of strangers, and to root up their clove or nutmeg trees, and not to acquire or diffuse information; and those who depended on their labours at home were satisfied if they could weigh spices and make out bills of lading, so long as they found that their expected cargoes regularly arrived, and that their Eastern commerce con * "The accounts of the Portuguese respecting Java (says Dirk Von Hogendorp, a very intelligent Dutch Commissioner, in a manuscript report on Java now before us), are all very confused, inaccurate, and contradictory; so that from them very little information is to be obtained. We (the Dutch) have produced very little of superior value; and though the work of Valentyn on Java is, on the whole, the best extant, it is still very far from being satisfactory." To show not only how little the agents of the Company and the men in authority at Batavia were disposed to favour any liberal research, but how zealous they were to discourage it, it may be sufficient to mention, from the same authority (that of Von Hogendorp), the fate of the Batavian Society of Arts and Sciences. This society, in order to avert the persecution of the government, not to secure its protection, was obliged to elect the members of the colonial administration for its directors, The consequence was what might have been expected. When the few men of talent and zeal who had instituted it died out, or removed, the institution dwindled to nothing. The presidents were elected rather for their negative qualities than from from any aptitude to do credit to the office; "and the last president," says Hogendorp, “could scarcely write his name!" "What," adds he, "can flourish under the reign of tyranny and violence! Our despotic government even prohibits a newspaper, lest their deeds should be made known in the colony or the mother country.' The Batavian Society was re-established under British authority, and has published a volume of Transactions." tinued to nourish their European power; while other commercial states viewed, with an illiberal envy, that prosperity of which they knew not the sources.* . That a civilized nation should have been so long in possession of colonies of great value, and inhabited by so singular and interesting a race of people, without instituting any serious inquiries concerning their habits, their character, or their history, is a very remarkable case. Governor Raffles, we will venture to say, has collected more information in the work before us on all topics not immediately connected with trade, within the short space of five years of intermediate sway, than all the governors, all the civil and military servants of the Dutch republic put together during an absolute dominion of two centuries. That part of his book on the language, literature, and poetry of the Javans; his account of the Kawi, or sacred language; his description of the antiquities of the island; and his two chapters of natural history; together with his translation of several of their * Dryden, who acted like the Tyrteus of England by writing a tragedy on the massacre of the English at Amboyna, and a "Satire on the Dutch," to excite his countrymen to war against them in the time of Charles II., speaks the language of this feeling in the following description of the Dutch East India trade from the Annus Mirabilis : In thriving arts long time had Holland grown, Crouching at home, and cruel when abroad; Stopped in their channels, found its freedom lost; And seemed but shipwrecked on so base a coast! In eastern quarries ripening precious dew; And in hot Ceylon spicy forests grew. The sun but seemed the labourer of the year; Again, in the Satire alluded to, he says, As needy gallants in the scriveners' hands Court the rich knaves that gripe their mortgaged lands, They fawn on those who ruin them-the Dutch. ethical and poetical works; appear to us to be almost entirely new, and to constitute a valuable addition to our stock of knowledge concerning the Eastern nations. That portion of his work in which he details the measures pursued by the British government after the conquest, the oppressions from which the natives were relieved, and the legislative regulations which were introduced for the security of their persons and property, has another claim on our attention besides its novelty: it is as interesting to our humanity, as the former is to our curiosity. But we hasten to make our readers better acquainted with these volumes, by some extracts, which we shall intersperse with such observations as occur to us. In citing all the passages which our limits will admit of, the object of arrangement is of little importance; we shall, therefore, follow that of the work itself. It is well known that the Dutch, having broken the yoke of Philip II. of Spain, and having from their naval resources become the carriers of Europe, were induced first to visit the Indian Ocean by the refusal of the same tyrant, who had become master of Portugal, to admit their ships into the port of Lisbon, at that time the grand emporium for Indian commodities. The Portuguese had not only discovered the passage to India by the Cape of Good Hope, which, together with the discovery of America, had changed the commerce and political relations of the world, but had, with an enterprize which astonished mankind, explored every corner of the maritime regions of Asia, and had established settlements, with irresistible energy, wherever their flag appeared, or their cupidity was attracted. The age of their glory, however, was now passed, when they were met in quarters where their oppressions had provoked a disposition to revolt, which their declining power was scarcely equal to restrain, by a new and unlooked-for enemy, animated with all the passions of commercial rivalry, and all the pride of lately-recovered freedom. The first voyage to those seas by the ships of the new republic was made in 1595; and as the command of the fleet was entrusted to one who had formerly been in the Portuguese service, and who was consequently well acquainted with the Portuguese settlements, it sailed direct to Bantam, the king of which was then at war with the Portuguese. There the Dutch landing, gave assistance to the king against his late masters; and being rewarded with ground for a factory, laid the first foundation of their power in India. In about twenty years afterwards, they founded Batavia, the capital of their dominions in the East; and in less than half a century their sway was absolute in the Indian Archipelago. We shall make some observations on the extent of their prosperity, the maxims by which they regulated their Indian government, and the causes which led to the decline of their power. Java, on which they rested the lever of that commerce by which the world was set in motion, was always esteemed the most important of their acquisitions. "This country," says Governor Raffles, "known to Europeans under the name of Java, and to the natives under those of Tana, Java, or Nusa, is one of the largest of what modern geographers call the Land Islands. It extends eastward with a slight inclination to the south from 105° 11' to 114° 33′ of longitude east of Greenwich, and lies between the latitudes 5° 52′ and 8° 46′ south. On the south and west it is washed by the Indian ocean; on the north-west, by a channel called the Straits of Henda, which separates it from Sumatra at a distance in one point only of fourteen miles; and on the south-east, by the Straits of Bali, only two miles wide, which divide it from the island of that name. These islands, and others stretching eastward, form with Java a gentle curve of more than 2,000 geographical miles, which, with less regularity, is continued from Acheen to Pagu on one side, and from Timor to New Guinea on the other." The name Java is of uncertain etymology, nor is it applied by the natives to the whole of the island which we designate by that title. Governor Raffles seems inclined to believe, that this island, or some of those bordering upon it, is the Taprobane of the ancients, and that Ceylon must yield this claim to distinction, which of late years "has rather been admitted than proved in its favour." "The most striking fact," says he, "detailed in the accounts which have reached us of this ancient country, and one which from its nature is least likely to be disfigured or perverted by the misrepresentations or prejudices of travellers, is, that it was bisected in nearly equal portions by the equinoctial line, and that to the southward of it the polar star was not visible. How can this statement be evaded, or in any way applied to Ceylon? Major Wilford seems inclined to consider Taprobane as derived from the Sanscrit words, tapa (penance) and vana (forest or grove), a derivation equally favourable to the claims of the Javans, tapa and vana or vano having a like signification in their language; and if, as there is reason to believe, an extensive intercourse subsisted in very remote times between western India and these islands, where was there a country that could more invite the retreat of holy men than the ever green islands which rise in endless clusters on the smooth seas of the Malayan Archipelago, where the elevation and tranquillity of devotion are fostered by all that is majestic or lovely in nature ?" The map of Java which accompanies the present work has been drawn up from actual surveys which were made by order of the British government, and therefore is certainly more accurate in its outline, and minute in its details, than any that has hitherto appeared. Indeed, none that had the least pretension to that character was hitherto known to Europe. Valentyn pub |