362 Brief Account of the I/lands of Band a. 



filtered as due from fcveral of the planters to the company, 

 and which moftof them were little able to pay : he alfo made 

 fome judicious regulations with refpe6t to the government of 

 the (laves. The price of the fpices was likewife raifed at this 

 time, from the old low rate to that at which it is now fixed. 



The alterations were fuppofed to hold out great encourage- 

 ment to the planters to give more attention to the culture of 

 the nutmeg-trees, and thereby to increafe the quantity of the 

 annual produce. But, however fpecious this fuppofition may 

 feem, it is utterly unfounded in truth ; for it will appear evi- 

 dent, from a clo'fe examination of the fubjeel:, that although 

 the fyftem of regulations eftablifhed by Boeckholtz be co- 

 loured with juftice, it in fa6fc depends on, and is intimately 

 blended with, the molt defpotic principles, as the following 

 circumftances will fufficientlv explain. The debt which the 

 Dutch government take the merit of having cancelled as an 

 act of indulgence, deferves not to be confidered in that light; 

 for the principal part of it was incurred on account of rice 

 and other articles of provifion given to the planters for their 

 own ufe and for that of their (laves, and without which they 

 would have perifhed and the fettlement have been annihilated. 

 And for this debt the planters certainly never expected to be 

 made accountable, having, at the time they received it, con- 

 fidered it as a donation upon which their exiftence depended. 

 As to their other debts on account of loans of money, &c. 

 though there were fome individuals who, from idlenefs and 

 inattention, were in low circumflances, and unable to dif- 



arge them without mortgaging their little property, yet 

 the greater part of the planters would have much rather con- 

 tinued in pofTeflion of their parks, and paid the juft demands 

 upon them, than, under colour of remiflion of thefe debts, 

 be deprived of that which, from long undifputed pofTeflion, 

 they confidered as their actual right. Befides, it appears 

 that fome of the planters had purchafed their land from the 

 company : and for the company, therefore, to repoffefs them- 

 ielves of thofe lands by compulfion, was an act compounded 

 of wanton infult, treachery, and tyranny, which, as it jufti- 

 fted the mod exemplary vengeance, fo it demands the fevered 

 ^reprobation. 



In the four iflands which produce nutmegs, there are fifty- 

 feven plantations, and 1708 (laves; but there is no regularity 

 cither in the divifion of the plantations or in the diuYibution 

 of the flaves : and it would be one of the moft efiential fteps 

 towards the improvement of thefe iflands to make an accurate 

 furvev of them, to have the plantations better proportioned, 

 and their boundaries more clearly defined. From the beft 



information, 



