Page:History of the Indian Archipelago Vol 3.djvu/257

EUROPEAN NATIONS. 24J pence of the establishments necessary to enforce a policy hostile to the feelings and interests of the natives of the country, became so great that it could no longer be borne, the practice of the com- panies was to withdraw their settlements, and ei- ther to proclaim that the natives were so treacher- ous that there was no dealing with them, * or that some fortuitous circumstance (with which, of course, they had nothing to do) had rendered the trade no longer worth conducting. Of the numerous establishments formed by the Dutch, not one remained to them at the close of that period, but those of the territory of which they had actual military possession, and every one even of these considered as mercantile concerns are shewn, by their accounts, to have been losing concerns to them. To the English there remain- ed at the close of the same period, out of their nu- merous settlements, but the wretched establish- ment at Bencoolen, by which they were yearly sinking large sums of money, and which they threat- ened over and over again to abandon. I do not in- • Every man of sense who has visited the Indian islands, and dealt temperately and honestly with the natives, comes off with a favourable impression of their character, while they are slandered by the supei*ficial and captious who had hoped to impose on their simplicity, and therefore experien- ced their resentment. VOL. in. Q