Page:History of the Indian Archipelago Vol 3.djvu/279

 EUROPEAN NATIONS. 263 their mutual wants, their usefulness to each other, and the fiicility of intercourse between them, Eu- ropean nations will be, most likely, through their means, to maintain an useful intercourse with the former, from a direct and free connection with whom they are at present excluded by insurmount- able barriers. The silent and unrestrained effects of the capital and enterprise of the European na- tions will probably, in time, if pennitted free scope, bring about this beneficial arrangement without much care on the part of a legislator, but it will not be out of place to offer such sug- gestions as may facilitate the way to it. With the poor, scattered, and semibarbarous nations of the Archipelago, naturally too unobservant of the principles of international law, it cannot be ex- pected that the distant and inexperienced trader of Europe should be able to conduct directly a com- merce either very extensive, secure, or agreeable. It will be necessary, both to his convenience and security, as well as to those of the native trader, that the intercourse between them should be con- ducted by an intermediate class in whom both can repose confidence. A colonial establishment be- comes the only means of effecting this object. In- numerable islands of the vast Archipelago are still unappropriated, and to colonize them is, therefore, not only consistent with natural justice, but, in the existing state of the European world, might almost