massacre and meanness. The slaughter of the Chinese traders there is a fearful transaction. On pretence of conveying those who yielded out of the country, they took them to sea, and threw them overboard. On one occasion, they demanded the body of Surapáti—a brave man, who rose from the rank of a slave to that of a chief, and a very troublesome one to them—from the very grave. They placed it upright in a chair, the commandant approached it, made his obeisance, treated it as a living person, with an expression of ironical mockery, and the officers followed his example. They then burnt the body, mixed it with gun-powder, and fired a salute with it in honour of the victory.
Such was their treatment of the natives, that the population of one province, Banyuawngi, which in 1750 amounted to upwards of 80,000 souls, in 1811 was reduced to 8,000. It is no less remarkable, says Sir Stamford Raffles, that while in all the capitals of British India the population has increased, wherever the Dutch influence has prevailed the work of depopulation has followed. In the Moluccas the oppressions and the consequent depopulation was monstrous. Whenever the natives have had the opportunity they have fled from the provinces under their power to the native tracts. With the following extract from Sir Stamford Raffles we will conclude this dismal notice of the deeds of a European people, claiming to be Christian, and what is more, Protestant and Reformed.
"Great demands were at all times made on the peasantry of Java for the Dutch army. Confined in unhealthy garrisons, exposed to unnecessary hardships and
