ART. II. Malay Annals: translated from the Malay Language, by the late Dr. John Leyden. With an Introduction, by Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles, F. R. S., &c. 8vo. pp. 361. 10s. 6d. Boards. Longman and Co. 1821.

WE E have already spoken with deserved commendation of Dr. Leyden, and the products of his unwearied diligence. He was endued, as a poet, with a chaste if not a powerful fancy; and the few years which he spent in India were dedicated perhaps to a somewhat diffusive, but on the whole a successful study of its various dialects. We have indeed heard, though possibly not on indisputable authority, that his promptitude in the acquisition of languages rendered him too inattentive to their elements, and that he himself was too prone to over-rate the extent of his own acquirements: but, be this as it may, he had mastered the parent tongue, the Sanskrit; and the others which were connected with it by affinity, descent, or analogy, became from habitual attention almost familiar to him.

Among the MSS. left by this indefatigable student, were the Malay Annals now published by Sir Thomas Raffles; the fruit of a residence in the eastern archipelago in the year 1805, before those interesting islands were occupied by the British authorities. Since that time, the public attention has been so much directed to them, and so much light has been thrown on the nature and resources of the Malayan archipelago, with the extent, character, and pursuits of its inhabitants, that a large portion of the reading community in Great Britain has begun to feel no slight share of interest in details respecting them.

Many of our readers, however, may not object to some farther information concerning this almost unexplored region; and we shall therefore make no apology for supplying them with a few general facts, derived from our own knowlege, and, may we be allowed to add, from our own experience? It is an interesting subdivision of the globe; and the works of Stavorinus and Valentyn in former days, with the more recent narratives of Marsden, Sir George Staunton, M. Tombe, and the French traveller Leschenault, not to mention Drake in Purchas's and Dampier in Harris's collection, may not be generally accessible.

More than a century before the Dutch name was known in India, the Portuguese had established themselves in the East. They marched uninterruptedly to wealth and dominion, and Lisbon was the great emporium for Indian commodities: but they were transient and short-lived acquisitions. Indolence, the child of luxury, had so enervated the successors of Vasco

de

de Gama, that they became a corrupt and enervated race; a memorable lesson to mankind, that the acquisitions of industry and valor are to be retained only by the virtues which first obtained them. In the mean while, the United Provinces, by a combination of favorable circumstances, had risen to a considerable rank among the western states; and, about the end of the sixteenth century, they had begun to extend their mercantile enterprizes to the Indian seas. Hence arose the celebrated Dutch East India Company. In point of fact, that company was nursed into greatness by English protection; and with a gratitude proverbially Dutch, in return for that protection, it set on foot expedients the most ruinous to our mercantile establishments, expelled our traders, and carried on intrigues with the natives to cripple and destroy

our commerce.

The avarice of the Portuguese outlived their power: but the puny posterity of their hardy adventurers made little or no resistance to preserve their settlements from the Dutch. That power was first planted in Java in 1595, about one hundred and eighty years after the establishment of Mohammedanism, and eighty-four years after that of the Portuguese. During the twenty years which elapsed between their arrival and the foundation of Batavia, Java underwent a considerable. revolution; and Cheribon, Bantam, and Jacatra lost their independence, being swallowed up by an ambitious family, (Mataram,) who over-ran the best portion of the island. The stupid and ignorant traders of the sixteenth century, however, had no views beyond the profit of the day. They considered commerce as a game in which the cunning and intelligence of the one party were opposed to the simplicity and weakness of the other; and, finding the advantage not on a level with the calculations of their avarice, fraud and dexterity not being always successful purveyors, they profited by these internal dissensions, and summoned force and cruelty

their aid.

to

Such were the auspices under which the Dutch intercourse began with Java, and the superstructure corresponded to the foundations. It lasted two centuries: but, during this period of a remorseless covetousness on one side, and a fearful distrust on the other, on the part of the Javanese arose a rooted hatred of every thing European; and that interesting people, whom an intercourse with milder and more humane conquerors might have disciplined to the arts and religion of Europe, sullenly rejected every invention of life, and every institution of society, by which their moral and social condi tion might have been improved. In consequence, at its capREV. JULY, 1822.

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ture.

ture by the British arms in 1810, Java was with respect to civilization just as it was when its connection with the Dutch began two hundred years before. It is a hateful subject! --The island was unfortunately restored to the Dutch at the peace of 1814; and we will not revive the question as to the policy or good faith of the measure. Yet how can we forbear to imagine to ourselves the improvement of a mild and docile nation, during the comparatively short space that had intervened under the mild and humane policy of a British government; which, instead of holding its ascendancy by the right of conquest, or the authority of force, has universally built it on the basis of mutual advantage and pacific intercourse. We call to our memory with sorrow the auguries with which we hailed the conquest, when we exclaimed, in the language of the poet,

“Et jam non telum, sed visû nobilis arbor

Non expectatas dabit anhelantibus umbras."

At this period, Sir Stamford Raffles, who has been indefatigable in the study of the languages and customs of Java and the rest of the Archipelago, was the resident at Batavia. No man is better acquainted with all that pertains to these islands; and we therefore present to our readers a part of his preliminary essay to this volume, in which a much larger portion of good sense and philosophy is to be found than in all the lucubrations of other diplomatists put together.

From the period at which Europeans first visited these islands, their civil history may be summed up in few words; it is included in that of their commerce. The extensive trade of these islands had long collected at certain natural and advantageous emporia; of these Bautain, Achau, Malacca, and Macasser, were the principal. The valour of Portugal broke the power of the native states, and left them exposed to the more selfish policy of their successors. The Dutch had no sooner established their capital at Batavia, than, not satisfied with transferring to it the emporium of Bautan, they conceived the idea of making it the sole and only depôt of the commerce of the Archipelago. Had this object been combined with a liberal policy, and had the local circumstances of Batavia not obstructed it, the effect might have been different, and, instead of the ruin and desolation which ensued throughout a large portion of these islands, they might have advanced in civilization, while they contributed to raise the prosperity and support the ascendancy of the Dutch metropolis. But when we advert to the greedy policy which swallowed up the resources of this extensive Archipelago in a narrow and rigid monopoly; and that, instead of leaving trade to accumulate, as it had previously done at the natural emporia, it was forced, by means of arbitrary and restrictive regulations, into one which,

independent of other disadvantages, soon proved the grave of the majority of those who were obliged to resort to it, we shall find the cause which made it as ruinous to the Dutch as to the people. By attempting too much, they lost what, under other circumstances, might have been turned to advantage, and the native states, deprived of their fair share of commerce, abandoned all attempts, and sunk into the comparative insignificance in which they were found at the period when our traders began to navigate those seas from Madras and Bengal. The destruction of the native trade of the Archipelago by this withering policy may be considered as the origin of many of the evils, and of all the piracies, of which we now complain. A maritime and commercial people, suddenly deprived of all honest employment, or the means of respectable subsistence, either sunk into apathy and indolence, or expended their natural energies in piratical attempts to recover, by force and plunder, what they had been deprived of by policy and fraud. In this state of decay, they continued to degenerate, till the appearance of the British traders revived their suppressed and nearly extinguished energies, and awoke to new life the commerce and enterprise of this interesting portion of the globe. The decline and corruption of the Dutch power in the East offered little obstruction; as our intercourse increased, their establishments were withdrawn, and long before the conquest of Java, and, indeed, before the last war, the English had already possessed themselves of the largest portion of this trade.

When we consider the extent of this unparalleled Archipelago; the vanity and peculiar character of its people; the infinity of its resources; its contiguity to China and Japan, the most populous regions of the earth; and the extraordinary facilities it affords to commerce, from the smoothness of its seas, the number and excellence of its harbours, and the regularity of its monsoons; it would be vain to assign limits, or to say how far and wide the tide of commerce might not have flowed, or how great the progress of civilization might not have been, had they been allowed to pursue their free and uninterrupted course, protected and encouraged by a more enlightened and liberal government. Had the commerce been properly conducted, the advantages must have been reciprocal; if it enriched the one party, it must have raised the other in the scale of civilization; by creating new wants, it must have opened new sources of enjoyment, encouraged industry and emulation.

The prejudice which has so long existed against the Malays is fast subsiding. Among the Malay states, we shall find none of the obstacles which exist among the more civilized people of India to the reception of new customs and ideas. Of the extensive and varied population inhabiting the Eastern Archipelago, and the continent adjacent, the gradations of civilization are wide, from the rude untutored Harafora, to the comparatively civilized Javan and Siamese; but the absence of inveterate prejudice, and a spirit of enterprise and freedom, distinguish the whole. In the interior of the larger islands, the population is almost exclusively

devoted to agriculture; but, on the coasts, the adventurous character of the Bugguese, and the speculative industry of the Chinese, have given a stimulus and direction to the energies of the maritime and commercial states. Establishments are formed on each of the principal rivers; and while the less civilized inhabitant of the country is engaged in collecting its valuable raw products, in traversing the woods, and sweeping the shores, these native merchants become the carriers to the more distant markets. The natural demands and necessities which must exist in so extensive an Archipelago, in which the employment and condition of the inhabitants are so various, give rise to a constant intercourse between them, and consequently to an extensive native trade, which, from its nature, must be beyond the reach of fiscal regulation.

The whole of this population, at least, on the Malay peninsula, and throughout the islands, have imbibed a taste for Indian and European manufactures, and the demand is only limited by their means. Artificial impediments may, for a time, have checked these means; but in countries where, independently of the cultivation of the soil, the treasures of the mines seem inexhaustible, and the raw produce of its forests has in all ages been in equal demand, it is not easy to fix limits to the extension of these means. These people have not undergone the same artificial moulding; they are fresher from the hand of nature, and the absence of bigotry and inveterate prejudice leaves them much more open to receive new impressions, and adopt new examples. Whatever may have been their original religion, its character does not appear to have been deeply imprinted, and they have carried the same moderate and temperate spirit into their new faith. They have no knowledge of the odious distinction of castes, but mingle indiscriminately in all society. With a high reverence for ancestry, and nobility of descent, they are more influenced by, and quicker discerners of superiority of individual talent, than is usual among people not far advanced in civilization. They are addicted to commerce, which has already given them a taste for luxuries, and this propensity they indulge to the utmost of their means. Among a people so unsophisticated, and so free from prejudices, it is obvious that a greater scope is given to the influence of example; that, in proportion as their intercourse with Europeans encreases, and a free commerce adds to their resources, along with the wants which will be created, and the luxuries supplied, the humanizing arts of life will also find their way, and we may anticipate a much more rapid improvement, than in nations who, having once arrived at a high point of civilization, and retrograded in the scale, are now hardened by the recollection of what they once were, are brought up in a contempt for every thing beyond their own narrow circle, and who have, for centuries, bent under the double load of foreign tyranny and priestly intolerance. When these striking and important differences are taken into the account, we may be permitted to indulge more sanguine expectations of improvement among the tribes of the eastern isles. We may look forward to an early abolition of piracy and illicit traffic, when the seas shall be

open