Page:Voyage in search of La Perouse, volume 1 (Stockdale).djvu/438

410 If this change of system has been attended with an apparent good, it must also give rise to more frequent wars. Man must indeed have sunk to extreme degradation, when the introduction of slavery becomes instrumental to his civilization! This, however, may be said of a people who were formerly cannibals.

The Dutch settled in the Moluccas, speak the Malayan language to their slaves; taking special care not to teach them their own mother-tongue, lest the slaves should understand their conversation among themselves.

As soon as the Dutch had secured the exclusive commerce of the Moluccas, they endeavoured to ascertain the population of those islands, and, by exaggeration in that particular, in order to convey a great idea of the subjugated country, they stated it at 150,000 souls, which, according to universal opinion, and the most recent estimates, is double the number of people in the Moluccas.

The quantity of cloves annually produced in that settlement is about 2,000 packages, each 534 pounds avoirdupois. The crop of two years forms the cargoes of three ships, two of which are sent in one year, and the third in the year following. The quantity of cloves and nutmegs exported sometimes exceeds the consumption; and, in that case, it is well known that the Dutch East