Page:History of the Indian Archipelago Vol 3.djvu/372

356 COMMERCIAL DESCRIPTION OF the existence of that skill and capital, without which this delicate product cannot be manufactured. The coarse drug manufactured by the natives for domestic use is, from a few situations in Java, exported in its liquid form in large jars, for the use of some of the neighbouring tribes, who are themselves incapable even of this rude degree of manufacture. The Dutch, pursuing the usual principles of their system of monopoly, laid several of the provinces of Java under contribution for in- digo, fixing the prices much below the natural value ; but a complete failure attended the attempt. Indigo, a much more precarious crop than any of those made by them the subject of agricultural monopoly, and requiring much more skill and ca- pital ill preparing it for a foreign market, of course sunk at once under the fatal touch of so rude a system. Before the British possession of Java, partial attempts had been made by European ad- venturers to manufacture a drug suited to the Eu- ropean market, and, as far as the quality of it was concerned, with signal success. In 1813, the quantity manufactured for the European market, or by the European process, did not exceed 20 pi- culs, or 2720 lbs. avoirdupois. Two English factories have been since established, which already manufacture SOO piculs, or 40,800 lbs. avoirdu- pois. By a new process pursued in the manufac- ture, and referred to in the agricultural part of