Note 68 — Chapter V

Among the exports from Java for the Europe market, no particular notice has been taken in the text of the extent of the spice trade, the produce of the Moluccas having, during the provisional administration of the British government, been conveyed direct from Amboina to the port of London, without being landed and re-assorted at Batavia, as was formerly the case under the Dutch government.

The sovereign Prince of the Netherlands has, by a solemn act, abandoned his right to the feudal services of his native subjects in the Eastern Archipelago, but has at the same time reserved to the state the exclusive monopoly of the spices. It may perhaps have been deemed expedient, in aid of the finances of Great Britain, that this odious monopoly should have been permitted to remain for upwards of five years under her uncontrolled dominion; and that, while the cloves on Amboina were raised by forced services, the nutmeg gardens on Banda should have been cultivated by slaves. There may have been reasons also which induced her to continue the system of extirpation in the neighbouring islands, and to act up to those stipulations for depressing these unhappy countries, for which the Dutch have in all ages been so justly reprobated. But now that the sovereign, to whom they are again ceded, has recommenced the Dutch administration in the Eastern seas, with an appearance of something more like justice, humanity, and sound policy than we have been in the habit of witnessing for the last two centuries, it is to be hoped that the profits of two annual cargoes of spices, whatever they may amount to, will never be considered of sufficient importance to tempt a great and magnanimous nation longer to trample on the hallowed rights of humanity, and to persevere in a system, which, while it may have afforded a temporary profit, has tended to degrade, depopulate, and destroy the fairest countries in creation. If the nutmeg and clove trees were allowed to grow where Providence would seem to have ordained that in their natural course they should, and this trade were opened to a free commerce, nutmegs might perhaps be procured as cheap as betel-nut, and cloves as cheap as pepper.

"In the Spice Islands," observes Adam Smith, "the Dutch are said to burn all the spiceries which a fertile season produces beyond what they expect to dispose of in Europe, with such a profit as they think sufficient. In the islands where they have no settlements they give a premium to those who collect the blossoms and green leaves of the clove and nutmeg trees which naturally grow there, but which this savage policy has now, it is said, completely exterminated. Even in the islands where they have settlements, they have very much reduced, it is said, the number of those trees. If the produce even of their own islands was much greater than what suited their market, the natives, they suspect, might find means to convey some part of it to other nations; and the best way, they imagine, to secure their own monopoly, is to take care that no more shall grow than what they themselves carry to market. By different acts of oppression, they have reduced the population of the Moluccas nearly to the number which is sufficient to supply with fresh provisions and other necessaries of life, their own insignificant garrisons, and such of their ships as occasionally come there for a cargo of spices. Under the government of the Portuguese, however, these islands are said to have been tolerably well peopled."

Had Dr. Smith written at the present day he might have heightened the picture by observing, that so far from even being able to supply the garrisons, these islands have long been considered incapable of raising sufficient supplies for their own subsistence; they have for many years depended almost entirely on Java for rice and the common necessaries of life, and latterly supplies have been sent to them from Bengal.