Another numerous class among the inhabitants of this country is the slaves; for by slaves the Dutch, Portuguese, and Indians, however different in their rank or situation, are constantly attended: they are purchased from Sumatra, Malacca, and almost all the eastern islands. The natives of Java, very few of whom, as I have before observed, live in the neighbourhood of Batavia, have an exemption from slavery under the sanction of very severe penal laws, which I believe are seldom violated. The price of these slaves is from ten to twenty pounds sterling; but girls, if they have beauty, sometimes fetch a hundred. They are a very lazy set of people; but as they will do but little work, they are content with a little victuals, subsisting altogether upon boiled rice, and a small quantity of the cheapest fish. As they are natives of different countries, they differ from each other extremely, both in person and disposition. The African negroes, called here Papua, are the worst, and consequently may be purchased for the least money: they are all thieves, and all incorrigible. Next to these are the Bougis and Macassars, both from the island of Celebes; these are lazy in the highest degree, and though not so much addicted to theft as the negroes, have a cruel and vindictive spirit, which renders them extremely dangerous; especially as, to gratify their resentment, they will make no scruple of sacrificing life. The best slaves, and consequently the dearest, are procured from the island of Bali: the most beautiful women from Nias, a small island on the coast of Sumatra; but they are of a tender and delicate constitution, and soon fall a sacrifice to the unwholesome air of Batavia. Besides these, there are Malays, and slaves of several other denominations, whose particular characteristics I do not remember.
These slaves are wholly in the power of their masters with respect to any punishment that does not take away life; but if a slave dies in consequence of punishment, though his death should not appear to have been intended, the master is called to a severe account, and he is generally condemned to suffer capitally. For this reason the master seldom inflicts punishment upon the slave himself, but applies to an officer called a Marineu, one of whom is stationed in every district. The duty of the Marineu is to quell riots, and take offenders into custody; but more particularly to apprehend runaway slaves, and punish them for such crimes as the master, supported by proper evidence, lays to their charge: the punishment however is not inflicted by the Marineu in person, but by slaves who are bred up to the business. Men are punished publicly, before the door of their master’s house; but women within it. The punishment is by stripes, the number being proportioned to the offence; and they are given with rods made of rattans, which are split into slender twigs for the purpose, and fetch blood at every stroke. A common punishment costs the master a rix-dollar, and a severe one a ducatoon, about six shillings and eight-pence. The master is also obliged to allow the slave three dubbelcheys, equal to about seven-pence half-penny a week, as an encouragement, and to prevent his being under temptations to steal, too strong to be resisted.
Concerning the government of this place I can say but little. We observed, however, a remarkable subordination among the people. Every man who is able to keep house has a certain specific rank acquired by the length of his services to the company: the different ranks which are thus acquired are distinguished by the ornaments of the coaches and the dresses of the coachmen: some are obliged to ride in plain coaches, some are allowed to paint them in different manners and degrees, and some to gild them. The coachman also appears in clothes that are quite plain, or more or less adorned with lace. The officer who presides here has the title of governor-General of the Indies, and the Dutch governors of all the other settlements are subordinate to him, and obliged to repair to Batavia that he may pass their accounts. If they appear to have been criminal, or even negligent, he punishes them by delay, and detains them during pleasure, sometimes one year, sometimes two years, and sometimes three: for they cannot quit the place till he gives them a dismission. Next to the governor are the members of the council, called here Edele Heeren, and by the corruption of the English, Idoleers. These Idoleers take upon them so much state, that whoever meets them in a carriage is expected to rise up and bow, then to drive on one side of the road, and there stop till they are past: the same homage is required also to their wives, and even their children; and it is commonly paid them by the inhabitants. But some of our captains have thought so slavish a mark of respect beneath the dignity which they derive from the service of his Britannic Majesty, and have refused to pay it; yet, if they were in a hired carriage, nothing could deter the coachman from honouring the Dutch grandee at their expence, but the most peremptory menace of immediate death.
Justice is administered here by a body of lawyers, who have ranks of distinction among themselves. Concerning their proceedings in questions of property, I know nothing; but their decisions in criminal cases seem to be severe with respect to the natives, and lenient with respect to their own people, in a criminal degree. A Christian always is indulged with an opportunity of escaping before he is brought to a trial, whatever may have been his offence; and if he is brought to a trial and convicted, he is seldom punished with death: while the poor Indians, on the contrary, are hanged, and broken upon the wheel, and even impaled alive, without mercy.
The Malays and Chinese have judicial officers of their own, under the denominations of captains and lieutenants, who determine in civil cases, subject to an appeal to the Dutch court.
The taxes paid by these people to the Company are very considerable; and that which is exacted of them for liberty to wear their hair, is by no means the least. They are paid monthly, and to save the trouble and charge of collecting them, a flag is hoisted upon the top of a house in the middle of the town when a payment is due, and the Chinese have experienced that it is their interest to repair thither with their money without delay.
The money current here consists of ducats, worth a hundred and thirty-two stivers; ducatoons, eighty stivers; imperial rix-dollars, sixty; rupees of Batavia, thirty; schellings, six; double cheys, two stivers and a half; and doits, one fourth of a stiver. Spanish dollars, when we were here, were at five shillings and fivepence; and we were told, that they were never lower than five shillings and fourpence, even at the Company’s warehouse. For English guineas we could never get more than nineteen shillings upon an average; for though the Chinese would give twenty shillings for some of the brightest, they would give no more than seventeen shillings for those that were much worn.
It may, perhaps, be of some advantage to strangers to be told that there are two kinds of coin here, of the same denomination, milled and unmilled, and that the milled is of most value. A milled ducatoon is worth eighty stivers; but an unmilled ducatoon is worth no more than seventy-two. All accounts are kept in rix-dollars and stivers, which, here at least, are mere nominal coins, like our pound sterling. The rixdollar is equal to forty-eight stivers, about four shillings and sixpence English currency.
CHAP. XIII.
THE PASSAGE FROM BATAVIA TO THE CAPE OF GOOD HOPE; SOME ACCOUNT OF PRINCE’S ISLAND AND ITS INHABITANTS, AND A COMPARATIVE VIEW OF THEIR LANGUAGE WITH THE MALAY AND JAVANESE.
On Thursday the 27th of December, at six o’clock in the morning, we weighed again and stood out to sea. After much delay by contrary winds, we weathered Pulo Pare on the 29th, and stood in for the main; soon after we fetched a small island under the main, in the midway between Batavia and Bantam, called Maneater’s Island. The next day, we weathered first Wapping Island, and then Pulo Babi. On the 31st, we stood over to the Sumatra shore; and, on the morning of new-year’s day, 1771, we stood over for the Java shore.