helpless Americans; and in proportion to the
natural fertility of the countries which they
inhabited, they were, besides, much more
populous. The most barbarous nations,
either of Africa or of the East Indies, were
shepherds; even the Hottentots were so.
But the natives of every part of America, except
Mexico and Peru, were only hunters;
and the difference is very great between the
number of shepherds and that of hunters,
whom the same extent of equally fertile territory
can maintain. In Africa and the East
Indies, therefore, it was more difficult to
displace the natives, and to extend the European
plantations over the greater part of the
lands of the original inhabitants. The genius
of exclusive companies, besides, is unfavourable,
it has already been observed, to
the growth of new colonies, and has probably
been the principal cause of the little progress
which they have made in the East Indies.
The Portuguese carried on the trade both to
Africa and the East Indies, without any exclusive
companies; and their settlements at
Congo, Angola, and Benguela, on the coast
of Africa, and at Goa in the East Indies,
though much depressed by superstition and
every sort of bad government, yet bear some
resemblance to the colonies of America, and
are partly inhabited by Portuguese who have
been established there for several generations.
The Dutch settlements at the Cape of Good
Hope and at Batavia, are at present the most
considerable colonies which the Europeans
have established, either in Africa or in the
East Indies; and both those settlements are
peculiarly fortunate in their situation. The
Cape of Good Hope was inhabited by a race
of people almost as barbarous, and quite as
incapable of defending themselves, as the natives
of America. It is, besides, the half-way
house, if one may say so, between Europe
and the East Indies, at which almost every
European ship makes some stay, both in going
and returning. The supplying of those
ships with every sort of fresh provisions, with
fruit, and sometimes with wine, affords alone
a very extensive market for the surplus produce
of the colonies. What the Cape of
Good Hope is between Europe and every
part of the East Indies, Batavia is between
the principal countries of the East Indies.
It lies upon the most frequented road from
Indostan to China and Japan, and is nearly
about mid-way upon that road. Almost all
the ships too, that sail between Europe and
China, touch at Batavia; and it is, over and
above all this, the centre and principal mart
of what is called the country trade of the East
Indies; not only of that part of it which is
carried on by Europeans, but of that which is
carried on by the native Indians; and vessels
navigated by the inhabitants of China and Japan,
of Tonquin, Malacca, Cochin-China,
and the island of Celebes, are frequently to
be seen in its port. Such advantageous situations
have enabled those two colonies to surmount
all the obstacles which the oppressive
genius of an exclusive company may have occasionally
opposed to their growth. They
have enabled Batavia to surmount the additional
disadvantage of perhaps the most unwholesome
climate in the world.
The English and Dutch companies, though
they have established no considerable colonies,
except the two above mentioned, have
both made considerable conquests in the East
Indies. But in the manner in which they
both govern their new subjects, the natural
genius of an exclusive company has shewn itself
most distinctly. In the spice islands, the
Dutch are said to burn all the spiceries which
a fertile season produces, beyond what they
expect to dispose of in Europe with such a
profit as they think sufficient. In the islands
where they have no settlements, they give a
premium to those who collect the young blossoms
and green leaves of the clove and nutmeg
trees, which naturally grow there, but
which this savage policy has now, it is said,
almost completely extirpated. Even in the
islands where they have settlements, they have
very much reduced, it is said, the number of
those trees. If the produce even of their own
islands was much greater than what suited
their market, the natives, they suspect, might
find means to convey some part of it to other
nations; and the best way, they imagine, to
secure their own monopoly, is to take care
that no more shall grow than what they themselves
carry to market. By different arts of
oppression, they have reduced the population
of several of the Moluccas nearly to the number
which is sufficient to supply with fresh
provisions, and other necessaries of life, their
own insignificant garrisons, and such of their
ships as occasionally come there for a cargo
of spices. Under the government even of the
Portuguese, however, those islands are said
to have been tolerably well inhabited. The
English company have not yet had time to
establish in Bengal so perfectly destructive a
system. The plan of their government, however,
has had exactly the same tendency. It
has not been uncommon, I am well assured,
for the chief, that is, the first clerk of a factory,
to order a peasant to plough up a rich
field of poppies, and sow it with rice, or some
other grain. The pretence was, to prevent a
scarcity of provisions; but the real reason, to
give the chief an opportunity of selling at a
better price a large quantity of opium which
he happened then to have upon hand. Upon
other occasions, the order has been reversed;
and a rich field of rice or other grain has
been ploughed up, in order to make room
for a plantation of poppies, when the chief
foresaw that extraordinary profit was likely
to be made by opium. The servants of the
company have, upon several occasions, attempted