Note 1 — EXTRACT

The Moluccas form a considerable archipelago, which extends in longitude from Java to New Guinea. On the coasts of Papua, and adjoining islands, are formed colonies of the inhabitants of New Guinea, and which are dependencies on the Moluccas. The Dutch have factories in all the islands of this archipelago, but at Amboyna and Banda they have forts, and considerable establishments1. In order to preserve the spice trade exclusively, they even went so far as to set fire to the adjacent islands which produced these shrubs; but such precautions are useless, for the whole of the Moluccas, with the coasts of Papua, and even all New Guinea, produce, and will continue to produce, them, while they exist. When the French were in the habit of procuring these productions, they did not go either to Banda or Amboyna in search of them, but to Guébi and Moar. Their vessels resorted to the port of Guébi, unquestionably the finest harbour in the Moluccas, and to which the Dutch were strangers, as the French found it uninhabited. They there established themselves during the time that the King of Maba and Patanie, and the Sultan of Tidor, went in search of the precious trees which furnished the spices: they took them to the Isle of France, where they succeeded remarkably well (as we have seen in the Chapter on the Isle of France), as well as at Cayenne, to which they were transported soon afterwards.