Page:Voyage in search of La Perouse, volume 1 (Stockdale).djvu/441

] a commercial turn; and some of them have purchased, at a very high price, the exclusive privilege of dealing in certain articles; and hence they sell them at exorbitant rates. They practise all sorts of expedients to get money, and hence their reputation often suffers exceedingly; but, on that head, they seem to have lost all sensibility. Some Jews, whom the Company permit to reside in the island, enter into commercial competitions with those Chinese; but the Israelites are no matches for them, the Chinese having greatly the advantage, in point of numbers and connections.

The collector of the Company's revenue is a Chinese, who is likewise charged with preserving the police among his countrymen established in the island, and takes cognizance of such cases as are not sufficiently important to be reserved for the decision of the government of Amboyna. We one day paid him a visit, in company with one of the ministers of the Protestant persuasion; and he entertained us with excellent tea. The table was covered with a great variety of well-preserved comfits: one of the best was the young nut of the fruit of the sago-palm. That chief, who is called the Chinese Captain, showed us, with an air of satisfaction, his armorial escutcheons, variegated with a great number of colours. Those ornaments were profusely displayed in