The History of Java, v. 1-2

by Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles

The first voyage made by the Dutch was in 1595, in which year their first fleet, under the command of Houtman (who had been previously employed by the Portuguese in the East India service), sailed direct to Bantam. At this period the Portuguese were at war with the king of Bantam, to whom Houtman offered assistance, in return for which he obtained permission to build a factory at Bantam, which was the first settlement formed by the Dutch in the East Indies.

Following the example of the Dutch, the English East India Company, immediately after their incorporation by Queen Elizabeth in 1601, fitted out a fleet of four ships, the command of which was entrusted to Captain Lancaster, who sailed from London in 1602, first to Acheen (Aché) on Sumatra, where he procured part of his cargo, and entered into a treaty with the king, of which a copy is yet in existence. From Acheen he went to Bantam, and settled a factory there, which was the first possession of the English in the East Indies. Captain Lancaster brought home a letter from the king of Bantam to Queen Elizabeth in 1602, which is still in the state paper office.

In 1610, the first Dutch governor general, Bolt, arrived at Bantam, and finding the situation of his countrymen in that province not favourable to the establishment of a permanent settlement, removed to Jákatra. On the 4th of March, 1621, the name of Batavia was conferred upon the new establishment of the Dutch in Jákatra, which from that period became the capital of their East Indian empire.

In 1683, the English, who had hitherto maintained a successful rivalry with the Dutch, withdrew their establishment from Bantam.

In the year 1811, Holland having become a province of France, the French flag was hoisted at Batavia; and on the 11th September, in the same year, the British government was declared supreme on Java, by a proclamation of that date signed by the Earl of Minto, Governor General of Bengal. On the 17th of the same month, a capitulation was entered into, by which all the dependencies fell into the hands of Great Britain.

On the 13th August, 1814, a convention was entered into by viscount Castlereagh, on the part of his Britannic Majesty, restoring to the Dutch the whole of their former possessions in the Eastern Islands; and on the 19th August, 1816, the flag of the Netherlands was again hoisted at Batavia.

Without adverting to the political importance to Great Britain of the conquest of Java, or to the great commercial advantages which both countries might eventually have derived from its remaining in our hands, I shall merely notice that the loss of it was no immediate or positive evil to the Dutch. For many years prior to the British expedition, Holland had derived little or no advantage from the nominal sovereignty which she continued to exercise over its internal affairs. All trade and intercourse between Java and Europe was interrupted and nearly destroyed; it added nothing to the commercial wealth or the naval means of the mother country: the controul of the latter over the agents she employed had proportionally diminished; she continued to send out governors, counsellors, and commissioners, but she gained from their inquiries little information on the causes of her failure, and no aid from their exertions in improving her resources, or retarding the approach of ruin. The colony became a burden on the mother country instead of assisting her, and the Company which had so long governed it being ruined, threw the load of its debts and obligations on the rest of the nation.

It might have been some consolation for the loss of immediate profit, or the contraction of immediate debt, to know, that such unfavourable circumstances were merely temporary; that they arose out of a state of political relations which affected internal improvement, and that the resources of the colony were progressively increasing, and would become available when peace or political changes should allow trade to flow in its former channels. Whether the Dutch could not indulge such prospects, or whether the system on which the internal government of their eastern dominion was conducted was in itself ruinous under any circumstances, a view of the financial and commercial state of Java before the conquest, and of the causes which led to the losses and dissolution of the Dutch East India Company, will assist the reader in determining.

In tracing these causes, it is hardly necessary to go further back than the period of the Company's history immediately preceding the war of 1780. The accidental calamities of that war brought it to the brink of ruin, and its importance in the past transactions of the country being borne in mind, a general concern existed in Holland for its preservation, and for the restoration and maintenance of its credit. With the view of affording it the most effective and beneficial assistance, inquiries were set on foot, not only to discover some temporary means of relief, but to provide a more permanent remedy for threatened decline. It is impossible to ascertain what might have been the result of the measures which were then in contemplation, as the convulsed state of Europe, and especially of Holland, subsequently to this period, left no room for their operation, and did not even admit of making the experiment of their efficiency. The free intercourse of the mother country with her colonies was interrupted; the trade was thrown into the hands of neutrals; several possessions were lost for the want of due protection, and those which remained were left to support or defend themselves in the best way they could, without any assistance or reinforcement from home.