2iS BAT A VI A. 
military, and marine establishments in the settlement ; they 
are the collectors of the rents, the customs, and the taxes ; 
and, in short, are the monopolizers of the interior commerce 
of the island, and, with the Malays, carry on the principal 
part of the coasting trade. 
That influence which wouljl naturally follow from the 
management of concerns so very important and extensive, 
could not long be regarded by a weak and luxurious govern- 
ment without jealous^^ Those arts which Europeans have 
usually employed with success in establishing themselves in 
foreign countries, and v»'hich the Dutch have not been back- 
ward in carefully studying and effectually carrying into prac- 
tice, with regard to the natives of Java, could not be applied 
with the least hope of success to the Chinese settlers. These 
people had no sovereign to dethrone, by opposing to him the 
claims of an usurper; nor did the separate interests of any 
petty chiefs allow tliem, by exciting jealousy, to put in exe- 
cution the old adage of divide ct ijnpcra, divide and com- 
mand. With as little hope of success could the masters of 
the island venture to seduce an industrious and abstemious 
people from their temperate habits, by the temptation of 
foreign luxuries ; and their general disposition to sobriety 
lield out no encouragement for the importation of spirituous 
litjuors and intoxicating drugs. For though the Chinese, who 
are in circumstances to afford it, make use of opium to ex- 
cess, yet this is a luxury in which tiie common people of this 
nation rarely think of indidging. The Dutch, therefore, who 
were weak in point of numbers, had recourse to a more de- 
risive and speedy measure of getting rid of a redundancy ol" 
