native energies of the people themselves; and that it is by the reciprocal advantages of commerce, and commerce alone, that we may best promote our own interest and their advancement. A few stations are occupied for the security and protection of our trade, and the independence of all the surrounding states is not only acknowledged, but maintained and supported by us.

Commerce being therefore the principle on which our connexions with the Eastern States are formed, it behoves us to consider the effects which it is calculated to produce. Commerce is universally allowed to bring many benefits in its train, and in particular, to be favourable to civilization and general improvement. Like all other powerful agents, however, it has proved the cause of many evils when improperly directed, or not sufficiently controuled. It creates wants, and introduces luxuries; but if there exist no principle for the regulation of these, and if there be nothing to check their influence, sensuality, vice, and corruption will be the necessary results. Where the social institutions are favourable to independence and improvement, where the intellectual powers are cultivated and expanded, commerce opens a wider field for exertion, and wealth and refinement become consistent with all that ennobles and exalts human nature. Edu cation must keep pace with commerce, in order that its benefits may be ensured and its evils avoided, and in our connexion with these countries, it should be our care, that while with one hand we carry to their shores the capital of our merchants, the other should be stretched forth to offer them the means of intellectual improve ment. Happily our policy is in accordance with these views and principles, and neither in the state of the countries themselves, nor in the character of their varied and extensive population, do we find any thing opposed. On the contrary, they invite us to the field, and every motive of humanity, policy, and religion, seems to combine to recommend our early attention to this important object.

A few words will be sufficient to shew the nature and extent of this field. With in its narrowest limits, it embraces the whole of that vast Archipelago, which, stretching from Sumatra and Java, to the islands of the Pacific, and thence to the

shores of China and Japan, has in all ages excited the attention, and attracted the cupidity of more civilized nations, whose valuable and peculiar productions contributed to swell the extravagance of Roman luxury, and in more modern times has raised the power and consequence of every successive European nation into whose hands its commerce has fallen; it has raised several of these from insignificance and obscurity, to power and eminence, and perhaps, in its earliest period, among the Italian states, communicated the first electric spark which awoke to life the energies and the literature of Europe. The native population of these interesting islands cannot be estimated at less than from ten to fifteen millions, of which Java alone contains five or six, and Sumatra not less than three.

In a more extensive view must be included the rich and populous countries of Ava, Siam, Camboja, Cochin-China, and Tonkin, the population of which is stil} more extensive than that of the islands. And, if to this we add the numerous Chinese population which is dispersed throughout these countries, and through the means of whom the light of knowledge may be extended to the remotest part of the Chinese empire, and even to Japan, it will readily be acknowledged that the field is perhaps the most extensive, interesting, and important, that ever offered itself to the contemplation of the philanthropic and enlightened mind.

When we descend to particulars, and consider the present state and circumstances of this extensive and varied population, and the history and character of the nations and tribes of which it is com→ posed, we shall be more convinced of the necessity which exists, and of the advantages which must result from affording them the means of education and improvement. Among no people with whom we have become acquainted, shall we find greater aptness to receive instruction, or fewer obstacles in the way of its communication.

Of the Malays who inhabit the interior of Sumatra, and are settled on the coasts throughout the Archipelago, it may be necessary to speak in the first place. The peculiar character of these people has always excited much attention, and various and opposite opinions have been enter

and two millions of inhabitants, the whole of whom, with the exception of such as may be employed in the gold mines, for which it has always been celebrated, are devoted to agriculture. The remains of sculpture and inscriptions found near the ancient capital, correspond with those discovered in Java, and prove them to have been under the influence of the same Hindoo faith which prevailed on that, island till the establishment of Mahomedanism there in the fifteenth century.

tertained regarding them. By some who have viewed only the darker side, they have been considered, with reference to their piracies and vices alone, as a people devoid of all regular government and principle, and abandoned to the influence of lawless and ungovernable passions. By others, however, who have taken a deeper view, and have become more intimately acquainted with their character, a different estimate has been formed. They admit the want of efficient government, but consider the people themselves to be possessed of high qualities, and such as might, under more favourable circumstances, be usefully and beneficially directed. They find in the personal independence of character which they display, their high sense of honour and impatience of insult, and in their habits of reasoning and reflection, the rudiments of improvement, and the basis of a better order of society, while in the obscurity of their early history, the wide diffusion of their language and the traces of their former greatness, they discover an infinite source of speculation and interest.

That they once occupied a more commanding political station in these seas, appears to be beyond a doubt, and that they maintained this position until after the introduction of Mahomedanism seems equally certain. From the geographical situation of the more important countries then occupied by them, they were the first to come in contact with the Mussulman Missionaries, and to embrace their tenets. Their power was on the decline when Europeans first visited their seas. At that period, however, the authority of Menangkabau, the ancient seat of government, was still acknowledged, and the states of Acheen and Malacca long disputed the progress of the Portuguese arms, The whole of Sumatra, at one period, was subject to the supreme power of Menangkabau, and evidence of the former grandeur and superiority of this state are still found not only in the pompous edicts of its sovereigns, and in the veneration and respect paid to the most distant branches of the family, but in the comparatively high and improved state of cultivation of the country, and in the vestiges of antiquity which have recently been discovered in it. This country occupies the central districts of Sumatra, and contains between one

At what period the people of Menangkabau embraced the doctrines of the prophet does not appear, and would form an interesting subject of inquiry. The conversion of Malacca and Acheen took place in the thirteenth century; but it is uncertain whether Menangkabau was converted previous to this date, although the religion is said to have been preached in Sumatra as early as the twelfth century. It was about this latter period, 1160, that a colony would appear to have issued from the interior of Sumatra, and established the maritime state of Singapura at the extremity of the Malay Peninsula, where a line of Hindoo princes continued to reign until the establishment of Malacca, and the conversion of that place in 1276, Whatever may in more remote times have been the nature of the intercourse between foreign nations and Menangkabau itself, we know that Singapura, during the period noticed, was an extensively maritime and commercial state, and that, on the first arrival of the Portuguese at Malacca, that emporium embraced the largest portion of the commerce between Eastern and Western nations. It is not necessary to enter into the history of the decline and fall of the Malay states of Malacca and Acheen, or of the establishment of Johor. The maritime and commercial enterprize of the people had already spread them far and wide through the Archipelago, and the power and policy of their European visitors, by breaking down their larger settlements, contributed to scatter them still wider, and to force them to form still smaller establishments wherever they could escape their power and vigilance.

The opinion generally formed of the character of this people having been taken from the maritime states, it may be sufficient, on the present occasion, to advert to some particulars in the constitution of

their government, and to the habits and character of the people who compose them. The government of these states, which are established in more or less power on the different rivers on the eastern coast of Sumatra, and on the Malay Peninsula, as well as on the coast of Borneo, and throughout the smaller islands, is founded on principles entirely feudal. A high respect is paid to the person and family of the prince, who usually traces his descent through a long line of ancestors, generally originating on the Malayan side from Menangkabau or Johor, and not unfrequently on the Mahomedan side from the descendants of the prophet. The nobles are chiefs at the head of a numerous train of dependents, whose services they command. Their civil institutions and internal policy are a mixture of the Mahomedan with their own more ancient and peculiar customs and usages, the latter of which predominate in the principal states they are collected in an ill-digested code; but in the inferior establishments they are trusted to tradition.

The Malays, with all their faults, are distinguished not only by the high respect they pay to ancestry and nobility of descent, and their entire devotion to their chiefs, and to the cause they undertake, but by a veneration and reverence for the experience and opinions of their elders. They never enter on an enterprize without duly weighing its advantages and consequences; but when once embarked in it, they devote themselves to its accomplishment. They are sparing of their labour, and judicious in its application: but when roused into action, are not wanting in spirit and enthusiasm. In their commercial dealings they are keen and speculative, and a spirit of gaming is prevalent; but in their general habits they are far from penurious. With a knowledge of this character, we may find in the circumstances in which they have been placed, some excuse for the frequent piracies, and the practice of "running a-muck," with which they have so often and justly been accused. The European policy which first destroyed the independence of their more respectable states, and subsequently appropriated to itself the whole trade of the Archipelago, left them without the means of honest subsistence; while, by the extreme severity of its tortures and punishments, it drove

them to a state of desperation. Thus piracy became honourable, and that devotion which on another occasion would have been called a virtue, became a crime.

Of the Javans, a higher estimate may be formed; though wanting in the native boldness and enterprize of character which distinguishes the Malays, they have many qualities in common with them, but bear deeper traces of foreign influence, and at the present period, at least, stand much higher in the scale of civilization. They are almost exclusively agricultural, and in the extraordinary fertility of their country, they find sufficient inducements to prefer a life of comparative ease and comfort within their own shores, to one of enterprize or hazard beyond them. The causes which have contributed to their present improved state are various, and, however interesting, it would swell this paper beyond its due limits to enter on them.

The Madurese who inhabit the neighbouring island are distinguished for more spirit and enterprize; but the people in that quarter who more peculiarly attract our interest are those of Bali, an island lying immediately east of Java, and who at the present day exhibit the extraordinary fact of the existence of an independent Hindoo Government in this quarter of the East. It was an island that, on the establishment of Mahomedanism in Java in the fifteenth century, the Hindoos who adhered to their original faith took refuge in, where they have preserved the recollection of their former greatness and the records and form of their religion. This island, no part of which has ever been subjected to European authority, contains, with Lambok, immediately adjoining, a population not far short of a million. The shores are unfavourable to commerce, and the people have not hitherto been much inclined to distant enterprize. The island itself has long been subjected to all the horrors of an active slave-trade, by which means its inhabitants have been distributed among the European settlements. A more honest commerce, however, has been latterly attracted to it, and both Bugguese and Chinese have formed small establishments in the principal towns. In their personal character they are remarkable for a high independence and impatience of controul. A redundant population, added to the slave-trade, has separated them into

various states, which are generally at war with each other.

In the island of Celebes, we find the people of a still more enterprizing character; the elective form of their government offers a singular anomaly among Asiatic states, and is not the least peculiar of their institutions. Bugguese are the most adventurous traders of the Archipelago, to every part of which they carry their speculations, and even extend them to the coast of New Holland. They are remarkable for fair dealing, and the extent of their transactions. They were converted to Mahomedanism at a much later period than either the Javans or Malays, and not generally till after the arrival of the Portuguese in the sixteenth century. This island contains an extensive population, but its interior and north-western provinces are but little known, and are inhabited by the same descriptions of uncultivated people as are found in the interior of Borneo and the larger islands to the eastward.

Of the population of the Moluccas, it may be remarked that they are for the most part Christians of the Lutheran persuasion.

The magnitude and importance of Borneo more particularly attracts our attention. Malay settlements are formed on its principal rivers, and extensive colonies of Chinese have established themselves in the vicinity of the gold mines at a short distance inland, but the interior of the island is yet unknown. Various estimates of its population have been formed, but the data are too uncertain to be depended upon. The tribes which inhabit the interior differ much in character; but the majority appear to be agricultural, and a race of people who might be easily improved and civilized. Others again are extremely barbarous, and it must be admitted, that the practice of man-hunting for the purpose of obtaining the heads of the victims, is too frequent throughout. Of this latter description, are various tribes still inhabiting the interior of Celebes, Ceram, and Jelolo, usually known by the name of Harafuras or Alfoors.

If we add to the above the population of the Philippines, which is not estimated at less than three millions, Magindanao and the Soolo Archipelago, the Battas and other inferior tribes of Sumatra, and the woolly-headed race occasionally found on

the peninsula and the larger islands, and more extensively established in Papua or New Guinea, some idea may be formed of the extent and nature of the varied population of this interesting Archipelago. But the numerous Chinese settlers who now form a considerable portion of this population, and who have given a stimulus to the industry of its inhabitants, must not be passed over in silence. In the island of Java, the number of these settlers is not less than one hundred thousand; a similar number is to be found in Siam : in Borneo they are still more numerous, and they are to be met with in every wellregulated state. The valuable gold mines of the latter island have offered a powerful inducement to their establishment: they are worked almost exclusively by Chinese, and an extensive population of Dayaks from the interior are rapidly extending cultivation in their vicinity. There seem to be no limits to the increase of Chinese on this island; the redundance of population in the mother country, the constant intercourse which exists with it, and the inducements afforded for colonization in a new soil, where, in addition to agricultural and commercial resources, the produce of gold and diamonds appears to be only proportioned to the labour employed, are such that, to a speculating and industrious people like the Chinese, they must continue to operate in spite of political restrictions and partial exactions. It deserves remark, that of all the inhabitants of the Archipelago, the Chinese, as well from their assimilating more with the customs of Europeans than the native Mahomedans, as from their habits of obedience and submission to power, are uniformly found to be the most peaceable and improveable.

From the review now taken, it will be seen how varied is the population of this Archipelago, both in character and employments, and that it consists both of agricultural and commercial classes, of different ranks in the scale of each, from the wildest tribes who seek a precarious subsistence in their woods and forests, to the civilized Javan who has drawn forth the riches of his unequalled soil, and made it the granary of these islands and from the petty trader who collects the scattered produce of the interior, to the Chinese capitalist who receives it from them, and

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