Dutch East Indies

“ She must have them, she will have them. Much of the trade of the Dutch East Indies is practically hers, and she is endeavouring to push the German language everywhere, and the German flag is displayed wherever she can to teach all the native races what it is. From the German point of view this is admirable and perfectly legitimate; I admire her splendid progress and her ambition, and only wish we were as far-seeing. But, unluckily, it does not suit our interests, and so each one of us is bound to oppose these aims by every or any means in his power. ”

“ The Dutch East India Company charter was granted in 1602, to trade to the East Indies by the Cape of Good Hope and the Strait of Magellan for twenty-one years, and no other of the East India companies has been so successfully managed. The Dutch have derived large revenue from the islands they still hold there, viz.: Java, the Moluccas or Spice islands, a large part of Borneo, Sumatra, Celebes and several small islands in the Malay Archipelago. ”

“ Any one contemplating a tour in what is so truly called a Wonderland, can do no better than place himself in the hands of the above-named companies, from whose officials they will receive every aid, courtesy, and information. They may wander for months in the fascinating Dutch East Indies and not exhaust their varied interests.
I also would here like to take the opportunity of thanking all those people, personally unknown to me, who, on reading another publication of mine, did me the honour and the kindness to write me such very pleasant and friendly letters. ”

“ At the present day, a periodical, appropriated to the affairs of the Dutch East Indies, appears regularly at Amsterdam. But Englishmen take little interest in Dutch colonies and colonists; and although now and then some Eastern traveller has devoted to them a casual chapter, for a quarter of a century nothing worth the naming has been written in our language with reference to the island of Java.
Most men have a pet country which, above all others, they desire to visit. ”

“ The people, though professedly Mohammedans, are in reality mostly pagans. This rich, beautiful, populous land is a Garden of Eden, despite the volcanoes, and the people are both contented and happy under Dutch rule, which suits them; and long may they continue under it, despite some present clouds in the sky.
The great buildings and cities of former days seem to have been extraordinary in size and magnificence. How strange, then, it seems that the dwellers in Java of those days had not penetrated south from island to island on to New Guinea and Australia. ”

“ Indeed the aims and ambitions of Germany in these seas are what we talk and think most about. The Dutch make nothing of many of their rich possessions; unless they wake up and do so, all may pass from them. Yet a treaty with us by which the Netherlands agreed never to part with an inch of territory here save to us, on condition that we guaranteed her safe possession of her over-seas' lands and the absolute integrity of the Netherlands, would for ever crush all these German and other aspirations, and render New Guinea valueless to Germany ”

“ The natives are the retainers of some of the native princes, and the overseers and more responsible men employed on the European plantations. The total garrison of the Dutch East Indies is consequently a very considerable one, viewed by the light of its duties, but allowance has to be made for the interminable war in Atchin, which keeps several thousand men permanently engaged, and never seems nearer an ending.
The Dutch authorities find great difficulty in recruiting their army for the East Indies, and with the growth of prosperity this difficulty increases. ”

“ The Dutch East Indies hold out small temptation either to civil or military adventurers. Few visions of speedy fortune, fewer still of rank and glory, dazzle the young and ardent, and lure them from their native land to the fever-breeding swamps of Batavia. Thus the Dutch government cannot afford to be very squeamish as to the character and quality of the men it sends thither. Dr. Selberg’s account of his fellow-passengers is evidence of this. “Amongst the soldiers,” he says, “were natives of various countries, Dutch, Belgians, French, Swiss ”

“ But our navigators that way have been confined to the roads of trade, and our discoveries bounded by what we can manage to a certain degree of gain. And I have heard it said among the Dutch, that their East India Company have long since forbidden, and under the greatest penalties, any further attempts of discovering that continent, having already more trade in those parts than they can turn to account, and fearing some more populous nation of Europe might make great establishments of trade in some of those unknown regions, which might ruin or impair what they have already in the Indies. ”

“ The richest locality for capturing such prizes was in the West Indies, and what the Netherlands greatly needed was territory near there, where her ships could be sheltered, repaired, and obtain the needed supplies. Spain was in possession of nearly all of what is now the south of the United States, and France of Canada. The English held Virginia and claimed what is now called New England, but between the two was a territory that seemed free for settlement and there is reason to believe that the Dutch East India Company was aware of that fact and aimed to take it. ”

“ This treaty was the foundation of the influence which the Dutch so soon succeeded in forming in the East Indies; and they established it by a candid, mild, and tolerant conduct, strongly contrasted with the pride and bigotry which had signalized every act of the Portuguese and Spaniards.
The prodigious success of the Indian trade occasioned numerous societies to be formed all through the republic. ”

“ In former times when a man held out his right hand to give or take something from you his left hand was free to stab you with his kris. Nowadays only a very few privileged natives in Java are allowed to carry the kris.
Another very noticeable feature of life in the Dutch East Indies, which immediately attracts the attention of a stranger, is the astonishing number of excessively corpulent Europeans. ”

“ Every house is a trading store full of all sorts of goods beloved of natives, and often there are five hundred traders there. They come from Macassar, Goram, and elsewhere, and many of them are Chinese, for these latter have for many centuries been at home in these seas. No Europeans live at it, but a Dutch Commissioner comes at long intervals to hear complaints and adjust matters. ”

“ The people not so long ago were savages and head-hunters. They are short, well-made, and fair, and are said to bear traces of a supposed Japanese origin. They are now very quiet, peaceable, and gentle—most attractive in every way; and are the best clothed, best housed, fed, and educated, most industrious, peaceable, and civilised people in the whole of the islands. And all this was done by the missionaries and the Dutch in a very short time! In 1822 coffee was introduced and roads and plantations made. The system of government by the Dutch is good and suits the people. ”

“ And, as all good work is immortal, so to-day all over the world goes on the influence of this one man and one woman, whose life on that little Dutch island changed its barren rocks to a bower of verdure, a home for the birds and the song of the nightingale. The grandchildren have gone to the four corners of the globe, and are now the generation of workers--some in the far East Indies ”

“ To suppose that it does not concern us is childish, for the ultimate prosperity and fate of the British West Indies is involved with Panama—and there is British South America and British Central America —for they exist—and it therefore lies with the British Government to look far ahead and guard our interests. ”

“ Fewer English are settled here than of any other nation, and next to them French: the Politick Dutch well knowing that the English and French being maritime powers must often have ships in the East Indies, and will demand and Obtain from them the subjects of their respective kings, will not enter either English or Frenchman into their service, unless they give in their place of natavity to be in some place out of their own countrey. ”

“ Not much of this large island is known. The Dutch commenced trading in 1607, and in 1660 a fleet under Van Dam took it, expelling the Portuguese, who were allies of its sovereign. It is healthy on the whole. There are many lakes and mountains. Bantaeng is a great but quiescent volcano; Bonthian and Koruve both exceed 10,000 feet in height. The Bugis are a mercantile people and have done much for the prosperity of the place. There are Dutch officials in fifteen towns and villages. The territory of the Raja of Goa extends to within two miles of Macassar town. ”

“ Sir W. Temple mentions other two causes, the great application of the whole province to the fishing trade, and the mighty advance the Dutch made towards engrossing the whole commerce of the East Indies. "The stock of this trade," he observes, "besides what it turns to in France, Spain, Italy, the Straits, and Germany, makes them so great masters in the trade of the northern parts of Europe, as Muscovy, Poland, Pomerania, and all the Baltic, where the spices, that are an Indian drug and European luxury, command all the commodities of those countries which are so necessary to life, as their corn ”

“ But during the whole time that the first war lasted, the Dutch were extending and strengthening this armed trade of theirs in the East, at the expense of Spaniard and Portuguese, defeating their navies, storming their forts, and proving to the Oriental rulers, who had hitherto no knowledge of any Powers but that of Spain and Portugal, that there was one other race at least, which was more than a match for these Europeans, with whom alone the native rulers had been hitherto familiar. ”

“ He told me he had a high opinion of the Dutch paternal government in Sumatra and their other East Indian possessions. He seemed a quaint character. Later in the day he drove me back in his buggy by a tolerable track to Friedrich Wilhelms Hafen. There is a grass which in the distance looks green and inviting, but it spoils everything and cannot be kept down. ”

“ Occasionally they threatened the coasts of Virginia and New England, and some combined with their West Indian cruises a foray along the coasts of Guinea and into the Red Sea. These corsairs were not all commissioned privateers, however, for some of them seized French shipping with as little compunction as English or Dutch. Especially after the Treaty of Utrecht there was a recrudescence of piracy both in the West Indies and in the East, and it was ten years or more thereafter before the freebooters were finally suppressed. ”

“ In the East Indies, the subjects of the States-General in concert with France, have endeavored to raise up enemies against us. In the West Indies, particularly at St Eustatia, every protection and assistance has been given to our rebellious subjects. Their privateers are openly received in the Dutch harbors, allowed to refit there, supplied with arms and ammunition, their crews recruited, their prizes brought in and sold; and all this in direct violation of as clear and solemn stipulations as can be made. ”

“ British enterprise is simply dead. Where is the spirit that led the old Dutch and Portuguese explorers in their quaint little ships to brave such perils as they did in the unknown In 1644 Commodore Abel Janzoon Tasman sailed along the northern coast of New Guinea on his way home to Batavia. ”

“ It is 300 miles long by 50 miles wide, and comprises an area of 11,650 square miles. The highest peak is Mount Alas, 12,250 feet, and others rise from 5000 to 6000 feet, thinly wooded, and on the side towards Australia quite sterile owing to the hot winds blowing from that continent. Germany has great desires towards acquiring Timor. It is: not known when the Portuguese first settled there. In 1859 the boundary between them and the Dutch part was settled. The Dutch capital is Kupang, which has7000 inhabitants: Malays, Chinese, Arabs, and natives. It is a good ”

“ Thirdly, by this survey, these countries are for ever marked out, so long as the map or memory of this voyage, shall remain. The Dutch East India Company have it always in their power to direct settlements, or new discoveries, either in New Guinea, from the Moluccas, or in New Holland, from Batavia directly. ”

“ In the Dutch Indies, for instance, they live in the most important commercial towns, and though the Government has never favoured them, and though they have had to compete with Chinese and with Europeans, they have succeeded in making their position sufficiently strong. ”

“ If the Portuguese power was in the descendant: if her precious secrets of this East51 Indian trade had been ruthlessly revealed: if her ships and her rich cargoes had been repeatedly taken with the same determination that the Armada had been defeated; yet she was still active in India, and the only European nation there established. However, not merely England, but Holland, too, had been growing strong in maritime ability. The Dutch people had always been by nature seamen for centuries, and were able to rival any English ability in the maritime arts. ”

“ One cause, perhaps, which has prevented us from turning our attention in this direction has been, an unwillingness to interfere with the Dutch, who have been supposed to have been in possession of all the valuable islands in the archipelago, and from long-standing to have a prior right to this portion of the East; but, although the Dutch have not been idle, and are gradually adding to their possessions, there is little chance of our interfering with them, as there is room, and more, for the Dutch, ourselves, and every other nation which may feel inclined to compete with us. ”