00 MEMOIR OF 



were restored, and parcelled out in nearly equal 

 proportions. 



The terms on which these arrangements stood, 

 suffered no material alteration until the year 1808, 

 when the ambitious views of Bonaparte had begun 

 to be more fully developed ; and the annexation of 

 Holland to France, placed at his disposal all the 

 valuable and extensive possessions of the Dutch in 

 the Eastern Seas; possessions as important to 

 Holland, as those on the continent of India are to 

 Great Britain. France then looked to Java as the 

 point from whence her operations might be most 

 successfully directed, not only against the political 

 ascendancy of England in the East, but likewise 

 against her commercial interests both abroad and 

 at home. Accordingly, with a view to promote the 

 designs of Napoleon, the Dutch governor of Java, 

 Marshal Daendels, officially declared, that the clauses* 

 of the existing treaties, by which the native princes 

 held their territories in fee from the Dutch, were 

 void ; and that, in future, he should consider them 

 as independent princes, having no other relation to 

 the European government, than such as must of 

 necessity exist between a weaker and stronger state 

 in the immediate neighbourhood of each other. 

 This declaration was tantamount either to voluntary 

 submission on the part of the weaker, or imme- 

 diate hostilities should they venture to resist. Some 

 indications of opposition having appeared. Marshal 



