176 THE FOUNDING OF SINGAPORE. 



tection and improvement of ail our interests in this quarter 

 cannot well be conceived. Since my return to this Country 

 my public attention has been chiefly directed to the proceed- 

 ings of the Hollanders, who, not satisfied with receiving from 

 us the fertile and important Islands of Java and the Moluccas, 

 have attempted to exercise a supremacy over the whole of Bor- 

 neo and Sumatra, and to exclude our nation from all inter- 

 course with the' other States of the Archipelago. They have 

 been very particular in the means, and they seem to have consi- 

 dered the degradation of the English character as necessary to 

 their own Establishment. You may easily conceive how much 

 annoyance this has given to me, and prepared as I was to 

 remain a quiet spectator of all their actions, I have not 

 found it possible to continue entirely neutral. While they 

 confined their proceedings to the Countries in which 

 European authority was established, we had no right to 

 interfere ; these we had by Treaty agreed to transfer to them, 

 and they were of course at liberty to act in them a,s they 

 thought proper without reference to our interests ; but they 

 no sooner found themselves possessed of these than they 

 conceived the idea of driving us from the Archipelago alto- 

 gether, and when I made my re-appearance in these Seas 

 they had actually hardly left us an inch of ground to stand 

 upon. Even our right to the spot on which I write this, 

 though yesterday a wilderness and without inhabitant, is 

 disputed; and, in return for our unparalleiled generosity, we 

 are left almost without a resting place in the Archipelago. 



But it is not our interests alone that have suffered by this 

 unexpected return ; those of humanity and civilization suffer 

 more deeply. To comprehend the question justly you 

 must consider that it has always been an obj ect of the first 

 importance to our Indian interests to preserve a free and 

 uninterrupted commerce with these Islands as well on 

 account of this commerce itself, as the safety of our more 

 extensive commerce with China, which lies beyond them; and 

 that for the last century, owing to the defects and radical 

 weakness of the Dutch, we have been able to effect this with- 

 out serious molestation from them. The consequence of this 

 constant and friendly intercourse has been the establishment 

 of numerous independent States throughout the Archi- 

 pelago. These have advanced considerably in civilization ; 

 and as their knowledge increased so did their wants ; and 

 their advancement in civilization might be estimated in the 

 ratio of their commerce. The latter is sudden!}- arrested by 

 the withering grasp of the Hollander ; the first article he 

 insists upon is the exclusion of the English and the mono- 



