MALAY LAND TENURE. 149 



maintained. They were frequently besieged, and the enemy 

 was on more than one occasion up to their very gates. It 

 would be absurd to suppose that any new land system was 

 devised or introduced for the limited area covered by the fort 

 and town in those troublous times. The Dutch drove out the 

 Portuguese in 1640. At no time during their occupation did 

 the Dutch open up the interior by means of roads : their forts 

 at St. John's hill and elsewhere shew that the suburbs 

 were not always peaceful, and there is little reason to suppose 

 that their direct rule extended far from the town of Malacca 

 itself. The whole object of their establishment was trade, 

 and, in the words of an English official who had studied the 

 subject, " Malacca was considered a mere outpost of the 

 " Supreme Colonial Government in Java for securing Dutch 

 " supremacy and monopoly in the Straits. Not only was 

 " agriculture discouraged, but it was absolutely preventeh. 

 " The cultivation of grain was forbidden as interfering witd 

 "monopoly in Java, and other species of tropical cultivation 

 " were equally disallowed from the same cause. "* Among the 

 sources of revenue of the Dutch Government before 1795 

 there is no mention of land revenue, and the absence of this 

 item is sufficiently accounted for by the statement just quoted. 

 The Dutch did not introduce any land laws, or derive any 

 public revenue from land, but they fully recognised individual 

 rights in land, and .supplied the means of proving title by 

 written documents. These rights were, for the most part, 

 rights acquired under the local native customs, and the man- 

 ner in which they were transferred was quite in keeping with 

 the native mode of thought. I have already quoted (sup., p. 

 120) a passage from the Kedah laws in which it is laid down 



* Journ. Lid. Arch., II, 737 ; Id. X, 45. — " Though under the dominion 

 " of an European power for about 250 years, it remains, even to the foot of 

 " the lines of the town, as wild and uncultivated as if there had never been 

 " a settlement formed here, and except by the small river that passes be- 

 " tween the fort and town, you cannot penetrate into the country in any 

 " direction above a few miles ; nor is even this extent general, being con- 

 " fined to the roads that run along the seashore about two miles each way 

 " and one that goes inland (about four miles)." — Capt, Lennon's Journal,— 

 1796— Journ, Straits Branch R. A, S., No. 7, p. 62. 



