THE POUNDING OF SINGAPORE. 177 



poly on account of his own Government of whatever may be 

 the principal produce of the place ; the private merchant is 

 thrust out altogether; or condemned to put up with 

 vexations and impositions but above all the unhealthy 

 climate of Batavia ; at which. Port alone the Dutch seem 

 determined that all the trade of these Islands shall centre. 

 Surely after the millions that have been sacrificed to this 

 hateful and destructive policy, they ought to have had some 

 common feeling for humanity, some object in view beyond 

 the cold calculations of profit and loss. Let them do what 

 they please with Java and the Moluccas, and these contain 

 a population of at least five millions ; but with the population 

 of Borneo, Sumatra and the other Islands, which is at least 

 equal in amount, they can have no right to interfere by 

 restrictive regulation. Let them turn their own lawful sub- 

 jects to what account they please, but let them not involve 

 our allies, and the British character, in the general vortex 

 of the ruin they are working for themselves. 



I must beg your pardon for troubling you with politics, 



but it is necessary I should give you some account of them 



to explain the cause of my movements, which have been 



various and rapid. I had not been six weeks in Bencoolen 



before it was necessary to penetrate into the interior of the 



Southern Districts of Sumatra. I had hardly accomplished 



this when my attention was directed to the Central districts 



and the original seat of Malayan Empire*"; on my return 



from there I had to send a party across the Island from 



Bencoolen ; being the first attempt of the kind ever made by 



Europeans, and finally I had to proceed to Bengal to report 



my proceedings and to confer with the Governor General 



as to what was best to be done to check the further progress 



of the Dutch. Here I fortunately met with every attention ; 



the subject was fairly and deliberately considered, and to 



use the emphatic words of Lord Hastings " there was but one 



opinion as to the moral turpitude of the means employed 



by our rivals and their determination to degrade and injure 



the British. In this crisis it remained to be considered what 



was best to be done in this country without exciting actual 



hostilities; and what should be recommended to the authorities 



in Europe. It was clear that the object of the Dutch was 



not only to command, for themselves all the trade of the 



Eastern Islands, but to possess the power in the event of 



future war of preventing our regular intercourse with China. 



* Menanghabau ; an interesting account of this visit is t) be found in 

 Crawiurd'a Descriptive Dictionary p. 273. 



