| In the year | 1779 | it was | 30,131 | píkuls. |
| In the year | 1800 | 106,513 | ||
| In the year | 1801 | 107,498 | ||
| In the year | 1808 | 94,903 |
that during the first fourteen of these years, the quantity made and delivered over to the Company for export to Holland, Persia, &c. amounted to 642,234 píkuls, or to an average of 47,874 annually, two of these years being almost entirely unproductive, on account of the non-payment to the manufacturers of money, to enable them to carry on their business. During the latter half of the period, or from 1794 to 1808, the quantity manufactured and delivered over to the Company amounted to 917,598 píkuls, averaging 65,542 annually. All the sugar for export, during this period, as stated in the text, was delivered over at fixed rates to the government, and was placed under laws of the strictest monopoly. To shew the great practicability of an increase to almost any extent, we may adduce the sudden start in the supply occasioned by the American demand in 1800. In no preceding year had this article of produce been delivered over to the Company to a greater amount than 67,552 píkuls, and in that year the quantity sold at Batavia to Americans alone, amounted to 91,554, and for the subsequent years averaged 100,000 píkuls, and sold for 900,000 Java rupees, or 11,000l. sterling. The principal part of this was manufactured at Batavia, the quantity supplied by Jawâna, Japâra, Chéribon, Surabáya, and Semárang, being but proportionally small till 1803, when Japára contributed to the exports of the island in this article 12,219. In 1804, the same province supplied 21,175 píkuls. The disadvantage under which the manufacturer laboured, by forced deliveries at inadequate rates, need not be here insisted on, though it must be taken into the account in any estimate of the attainable increase of the manufacture.
[63] Mr. Hogendorp makes the following observations on the coffee and pepper of Java:—"In comparing the produce of the West Indian islands, according to their proportionate extent, population, and expenses of cultivation, I have frequently left off in the middle of my calculations; but I am sure that Java, on a very moderate calculation, can without difficulty yield fifty millions of pounds of coffee annually.
"For a long period, the planting of coffee was confined to the Batavian high and Priáng'en lands, and to Chéribon, on the principles of that short-sighted and self-destroying policy and spirit of monopoly, by which the company and the government of Batavia have ever been characterized. It is only of late years that it has been permitted to extend and revive the cultivation in the eastern districts. But the Commissioners, in May 1796, ordered that the cultivation should be abolished; and in the month of September in the same year, this order was countermanded, and the planting of coffee ordered to be promoted in the most rigorous manner possible. But what is to be expected from a country, where the natives are so treated, so oppressed? To-day the Javan is ordered to plant his garden with coffee trees: he does so, and although well aware how little he will get for the fruit, he sees them grow up with pleasure, considering their produce as a tribute which he must pay to his master for enjoyment of protection; but now, when they are about to bear fruit, he is ordered to root them out: he does so, and four months afterwards he is again ordered to plant others! Can a more infamous tyranny be imagined? Can it be credited, that any government should act so madly, so inconsistently? And yet this is the plain and real truth. But how can stupid ignorance, which by the vilest means, by base meanness, mercenary marriages, and every kind of low trick, rises into power and importance, and then becomes by wealth luxurious, and by flattery intoxicated, act otherwise? And will you, Batavians, continue to trust in such hands as these, your valuable possessions and interests in India?
"Pepper grows but slowly on any soil, and is so nice with regard to it, that in some places, where to all appearance there would be an abundant produce of the plant, it will not grow at all. The vine requires four or five years to produce fruit. The improvident Javan, who under the present despotic administration, can and will scarcely provide for his daily subsistence, finds this too long a delay between his labour and its reward: having, therefore, no sufficient motive to pursue the cultivation cheerfully or actively, he can only be driven to it by force; but let him once experience the advantage of property in land; let him see the trader ready with plenty of money to purchase the fruits of his labour; let him, if he should still be idle, observe his more industrious neighbour acquire wealth, by the sale of those articles which he slothfully declines to cultivate, and with it procure the necessaries or conveniences of life, and he will soon be induced, by emulation and the desire of ameliorating his condition, to plough and plant his ground. The Island of Java will then produce a considerable quantity of pepper, for which, if the cultivator obtains twelve rix-dollars per píkul, he will be amply paid.
"Although every thing goes on with difficulty at first, and it cannot be denied that it will require time and trouble to stimulate the Javans, who are now confounded, as it were, with tyranny and oppression, to industry and emulation, it is notwithstanding equally certain, that an improved system of administration, founded on property of the soil, freedom of person and trade, would by degrees, though perhaps much quicker than may be imagined, bring about such a change, and that Java might and would produce as much pepper for exportation annually as coffee, or about two hundred thousand píkuls, which will bring three thousand six hundred rix-dollars into the country."
In the year 1801, it was estimated by one of the first commercial houses in Europe, that the following quantities of pepper might be obtained from different ports of the Archipelago.
"Ports and Places where Pepper is to be had:—estimated in March 1801.
"At Bencoolen, belonging to the English, may be had about twelve hundred tons of pepper per annum.