“ A well-informed correspondent of our own, in particular, has warned us repeatedly to watch events, and not to trust implicitly in the carefully diffused Dutch view, that the occurrence has been so carefully provided against that complications are not to be expected. ”

“ It is not to be wondered at that such a prospect should prove attractive to ambitious men, or that diplomatists who are not so scrupulous as their English rivals should have studied the chances presented by the change in the Dutch succession, which seem great to them, though they do not to Englishmen, with some attentiveness. ”

“ The Dutch possess in farther Asia, besides the island of Java, of which alone the English often hear, the islands of Celebes and Sumatra, together with Bali, Flores, and Timor, and strong, though ill-defined, rights to a vast extent of Borneo and New Guinea. They themselves estimate the area of their possessions in Asia at six hundred thousand square miles, or three-fifths the area of India, with a population of twenty-three millions, and a revenue of at least a million. ”

“ Their position, moreover, is so central, and their alliances with native chiefs are so ramified, that it is not too much to say that if they were supported by a first-class power they might possess themselves firmly of the whole of the Eastern Archipelago from Australia to the Philippines, a dominion which, though far less populous than India, would be greater in area, and probably richer in fertile land, thick forests, and universal resources. ”