Financial Condition of Java, *'S85 



some of Mr. R.'s exertions should have been thus opposed, during 

 their progress, by his immediate coadjutors, and that others should 

 have been considered as of doubtful policy by his superiors, will 

 not occasion surprise in the minds of those who possess any know- 

 ledge of human nature and the concerns of public life. To such, 

 on the contrary, it will prove matter of admiration, that so young 

 a man, exposed, on account of his very youth alone, to an unusual 

 share of jealous competition, should have planned and executed 

 measures in general so unexceptionable and so successful, whilst 

 at the head of an administration necessarily invested with exten- 

 sive powers and wide discretion, for the regulation of a colony, 

 the alFairs of which had been for many years in a very deranged 

 condition, and which %vas surrounded by native governments of 

 depraved character. All these measures, too, it must be ob?erved, 

 were such as reflected honour on the character of Mr. Raffles, as 

 a man ?.nd a public officer, if even it be true that some of them 

 were defective in policy, as indifferently adapted to the existing 

 state of affairs in our Indian government, and the ostensible views 

 of the East-India Company. 



On becoming Lieutenant-Governor of Java, Mr. Raffles quickly 

 discerned that an entire renovation of the economy of the former 

 government would be necessary, to form a basis for his ulterior 

 designs. 



The principal source of revenue in the colonies of the Eastern 

 Archipelago, whilst subject to the Dutch, prior to the capture of 

 Java, in 1811, was the monopoly by the government of the graia 

 and other produce of the land; which the cultivators were re- 

 quired to deliver, at an arbitrary and always inadequate rate, and 

 which was afterwards dealt out to the consumers, at a far higher 

 rate. The whole body of the people, therefore, depended upon 

 the government for their very subsistence. The principle of en- 

 couraging industry in the cultivation and general improvement of 

 the country, by creating an interest in the effort and the fruits 

 of that industry, was wholly unknown. The manner in which 

 this revenue in kind should be collected, was left to the discretion 

 of the Regent, or chief native authority in each district; the 

 cultivators having no security against oppressive requirements, be- 



VoL. III. 2 u 



