Page:History of the Indian Archipelago Vol 3.djvu/424

 408 COMMERCIAL DESCRirXION OF first intercourse, they traded on terms of equality and justice, the nutmegs being near five times as dear, and the mace more than double. This is the nature of the retribution, considered in a mere mer- cenary view, which has fallen upon them for the double crime of exterminating the native inhabit- ants, and introducing the labour of slaves. The entire monopoly of the spice trade is ensured, both as far as regards the production of the nutmeg as well as the clove tree, by confining the first, as already stated, to the Banda isles, and the latter to Amboyna — by paying little stipends to the petty princes of the other native countries of spices for the extermination of the plants, — by sending an annual fleet round the different islands, to see that the terms are literally complied with, —and by de- claring the penalty of what they are pleased to call the illicit trade in spices to be banishment to a noble, and death to an inferior person ! Such is the system of mismanagement by which, once the greatest branch of the commerce of the East, has been reduced to a pittance that would by no means afford employment to the capital of many private merchants of London, Glasgow, or Liverpool. Our nation was thirteen years in possession of the Spice Islands, and twice restored them, with- out alteration in the principle on which they were governed, to those who had reduced them to their present state of degradation and insignificance.