Page:History of the Indian Archipelago Vol 2.djvu/449

 OF THE ARCHIPELAGO. 405 vaiiese three times, — and the Dutch twice. On many occasions it was reduced, by famine and epi- demic disease, to the last degree of distress. Ma- lacca scarce ever exceeded the limits which the first conquest established. This distant post was ne- glected by the viceroys of India, amidst the multi- plicity of their engagements to the "west. Notwith- standing these disadvantages, and the pernicious exercise of commercial functions by the sovereign au- thority, the natural advantages of the place as a com- mercial emporium, a considerable freedom of com- merce in the place itself, and the active enterprise of the Javanese, the people of Celebes, the Chinese and Japanese, not yet compelled, by the violence of Eu- ropean invasion and encroachment, to withdraw from commercial pursuits, Malacca continued to maintain its commercial reputation. After Or- mus and Goa, it was still the first commercial city of the Indies. The revenue of the customs a- mounted annually, independent of the profits of trade, real or pretended, to seventy- thousand do!* lars ; but, as the Portuguese writers assure us, that the crown was regularly defrauded by its officers of one- half the duties, the amount must of course have been one hundred and forty thousand crowns,— a large sum in those times. The particulars of the story of Malacca will be found, narrated at length, in the chronological ta-