444 
THE GEOGRAPHICAL GROUP OF BORNEO. 
which were not carried into effect because at this time a flotilla of 
seven small Dutch vessels of war appeared before Ponti&n&k,* 
We do not follow the diplomatic agent in his navigation of the 
rivers of Mendauw, Mehduw, Simpfing, K&tap&n &c., to proceed to 
Simpang and thence to Bengading, the respective residencies of the 
P&nemb&h&n of Simp&ng and the Sultan of Matan. New contracts 
were ratified on the 23rd November 1822 at Simpang and on the 
3rd December following at Matan. On his return G. Muller took 
renewed possession of Succ&dan&. In 1824 the government of In¬ 
dia took solemn possession of the Kdmin^td islands. 
All the orders and strenuous efforts of the government for the 
complete establishment of order and the amelioration of the Day&ks 
were opposed by the turbulent and intractable Chinese. The emi¬ 
gration of this people takes place chiefly from the southern provin¬ 
ces of China. Of the 8 or 9 thousands of souls who annually ex¬ 
patriate themselves, Java receives from 1800 to 2000 ; the remainder 
proceed to Borneo, Sumatra, Rhio, and Banka.f If the Chinese laws 
were not severely opposed to the emigration of females, Malasia' 
would very soon become a second Chinese empire. 
These strangers have succeeded in reducing almost to nullity the 
power of the petty sovereigns with whom their predecessors, return¬ 
ed rich to their native country, formerly made contracts. The new 
aspirants to wealth finish by only paying taxes to the princes at their 
convenience ; so that the latter have in some sort become dependents 
of these intriguers, who improve for their profit the most lucrative 
branches of commerce, and who by their iudustry appropriate more 
than two thirds of the revenues of the mines and the diamond wash¬ 
ings. These pirates seeing their numbers and their power annually 
* Although these attempts and many other acts of the old English Go- 
-vernor, Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles, with a view to maintain a footing in 
the seas of the Archipelago, had been disapproved of by England, iheoc- 
cupation of Singapore remained not the less a fact accomplished. The 
treaty of 17th March 1824 between England and the Netherlands has put 
an end, it is true, to these encroachments of British commerce, as w ell as 
to the attempts of its evangelical missionaries and philanthropic agents; 
but has not the Netherlands at this day serious motives for watching with 
solitciude the events which very recently have begun to happen in Borneo? 
•f See ante p, 286,—El>. 
