Page:History of the Indian Archipelago Vol 2.djvu/475

 OP THE ARCHIPELAGO. ^81 ilcy and regulation, neither liberal nor judicious, the country has prospered to an unexampled de- gree, its agriculture has greatly increased, and its population has been probably tripled. Here it cannot escape notice, that the period of the de- cline and weakness of the Dutch power, both in Europe and India, is just the same as the period of the prosperity of this great colony. While the ability to exercise a mischievous ambition, and to inflict the most grievous and absurd restrictions lasted, the island was in a perpetual state of deso- lation and anarchy. From the moment that that ability (Teased to exist, order and tranquillity were restm'ed, and prosperity was progressive and rapid. Having rendered this account of the policy pur- sued by the Dutch in Java, I shall proceed to offer a short account of their proceedings in the more western countries of the Archipelago, chiefly con- sidering Sumatra and Malacca under this head. These countries, less fertile, less improved, and less populous than Java, afforded them, from these causes, and the intractableness of the rude natives, the absence of resources, and the natu- ral difficulties opposed to invaders, in extensive and almost inaccessible regions, covered by forests, no opportunity of making permanent territorial conquests. The object of the Dutch policy in these countries had more exclusively in view the interests of the commercial monopoly, by pursu*