What hope indeed could there be for anybody, when the authorities were in this diabolical league? and this was the custom of legalizing a kidnapping: “A person calling himself an interpreter, repairs, at the desire of one who says that he has bought a slave, to the secretary’s office, accompanied by any native who, provided with a note from the purchaser, gives himself out as the seller. For three rupees, a certificate of sale in the usual form is immediately made out; three rupees are paid to the notary; two rupees are put into the hands of the interpreter; the whole transaction is concluded, and the purchaser has thus become the owner of a free-born man, who is very often stolen without his (the purchaser’s) concurrence; but about this he does not trouble himself, for the victim is already concealed where nobody can find him; nor can the transaction become public, because there never were found more faithful receivers than the slave-traders. It is a maxim with them, in their own phrase, “never to betray their prison.” Both purchaser and seller are often fictitious—the public officers being in league with the interpreters. By such means it is obvious a stolen man is as easily procured as if he were already pinioned at the door of his purchaser. You have only to give a rupee to any one to say that he is the seller, and plenty are ready to do that. Numbers maintain themselves on such profits, and slaves are thus often bribed against their own possessors. The victims are never examined, nor do the Dutch concern themselves about the matter, so that at any time any number of orders for transport may, if necessary, be prepared before-hand with the utmost security.
“Let us,” continues the report, “represent to ourselves this one town of Makásar, filled with prisons, the one more dismal than the other, which are stuffed with hundreds of wretches, the victims of avarice and tyranny, who, chained in fetters, and taken away from their wives, children, parents, friends, and comforts, look to their future destiny with despair.”
On the other hand, wives missing their husbands, children their parents, parents their children, with their hearts filled with rage and revenge, were running through the streets, if possible, to discover where their relatives were concealed. It was in vain. They were sometimes stabbed, if too troublesome in their inquiries; or led on by false hopes of ransom, till they were themselves thrown into debt, and easily made a prey of too. Such was the terror universally existing in these islands when the English conquered them, that the inhabitants did not dare to walk the streets, work in the fields, or go on a journey, except in companies of five or six together, and well armed.
Such were some of the practices of the Protestant Dutch. But their sordid villany in gaining possession of places was just as great as that in getting hold of people. Desirous of becoming masters of Malacca, they bribed the Portuguese governor to betray it into their hands. The bargain was struck, and he introduced the enemy into the city in 1641. They hastened to his house, and massacred him, to save the bribe of 500,000 livres—21,875l. of English money! The Dutch commander then tauntingly asked the commander of the Portuguese garrison, as he marched out, when he would come back again to the place. The Portuguese gravely replied—“When your crimes are greater than ours!”
Desirous of seizing on Cochin on the coast of Malabar, they had no sooner invested it than the news of peace between Holland and Portugal arrived; but they kept this secret till the place was taken, and when reproached by the Portuguese with their base conduct, they coolly replied—“Who did the same on the coast of Brazil?”
Like all designing people, they were as suspicious of evil as they knew themselves capable of it. On first touching at the isle of Madura, the prince intimated his wish to pay his respects to the commander on board his vessel. It was assented to; but when the Dutch saw the number of boats coming off, they became alarmed, fired their cannon on the unsuspicious crowd, and then fell upon the confounded throng with such fury that they killed the prince, and the greater part of his followers.
Their manner of first gaining a footing in Batavia is thus recorded by the Javan historians. “In the first place they wished to ascertain the strength of Jákatra (the native town on the ruins of which Batavia was built). They therefore landed like máta-mátas (peons or messengers); the captain of the ship disguising himself with a turban, and accompanying several Khójas, (natives of the Coromandel coast.) When he had made his observations, he entered upon trade; offering however much better terms than were just, and making more presents than were necessary. A friendship thus took place between him and the prince: when this was established, the captain said that his ship was in want of repairs, and the prince allowed the vessel to come up the river. There the captain knocked out the planks of the bottom, and sunk the vessel, to obtain a pretence for further delay, and then requested a very small piece of ground on which to build a shed for the protection of the sails and other property during the repair of the vessel. This being granted, the captain raised a wall of mud, so that nobody could know what he was doing, and continued to court the favour of the prince. He soon requested as much more land as could be covered by a buffalo’s hide, on which to build a small póndok. This being complied with, he cut the hide into strips, and claimed all the land he could inclose with them. He went on with his buildings, engaging to pay all the expenses of raising them. When the fort was finished, he threw down his mud wall, planted his cannon, and refused to pay a doit!”
But the whole history of the Dutch in Java is too long for our purpose. It may be found in Sir Stamford Raffles’s two great quartos, and it is one of the most extraordinary relations of treachery, bribery, massacre and meanness. The slaughter of the Chinese traders there is a fearful transaction. On pretence of conveying those who yielded out of the country, they took them to sea, and threw them overboard. On one occasion, they demanded the body of Surapáti—a brave man, who rose from the rank of a slave to that of a chief, and a very troublesome one to them—from the very grave. They placed it upright in a chair, the commandant approached it, made his obeisance, treated it as a living person, with an expression of ironical mockery, and the officers followed his example. They then burnt the body, mixed it with gun-powder, and fired a salute with it in honour of the victory.
Such was their treatment of the natives, that the population of one province, Banyuawngi, which in 1750 amounted to upwards of 80,000 souls, in 1811 was reduced to 8,000. It is no less remarkable, says Sir Stamford Raffles, that while in all the capitals of British India the population has increased, wherever the Dutch influence has prevailed the work of depopulation has followed. In the Moluccas the oppressions and the consequent depopulation was monstrous. Whenever the natives have had the opportunity they have fled from the provinces under their power to the native tracts. With the following extract from Sir Stamford Raffles we will conclude this dismal notice of the deeds of a European people, claiming to be Christian, and what is more, Protestant and Reformed.