bold and active Malays and Bugis who infest their coasts ; openly robbed and enslaved by their brother islanders; defrauded by the Chinese, King or Arab adventurer, whose superior activity and cunning, enable him to profit more by their industry than they do themselves: neglected by the European who seeks the same end by honest means, and, that attained, returns to bis native country and gives them no second thought; and without any active internal elements of advancement;—it is only by awakening an interest in Europe itself that the inhabitants of the Archipelago can hope for any amelioration. So long as they only know one place of European character,—the ardent, steady and inventive pursuit of gain,—the influence of Europe will remain, what it has hitherto proved, more prejudicial than beneficial. But let the deep human sympathy which dwells in England and overflows on so many sides, once effectually reach the people of this noble region of the worlds let England learn their many virtues, their mild and engaging manners, their freedom from intolerance, their docility, their aptitude for instruction; and let her but take seriously to heart the fact that on the seas where her flag has floated and her commerce largely profitted for two hundred and fifty years, the peaceful trader cannot at this day venture to embark without the risk of being slain or enslaved,—that from the destruction of all national power, in which her own policy aided, a few thousand pirates now keep the coasts of countries numbering millions of inhabitants in a state of insecurisy,—and her energy and resources will soon work out the best means of suppressing these evils at once and for ever, and of implanting fresh and vigorous elements of more development in the now stagnant minds of the inhabitants. Without this we may continue for another hundred years to mingle in the trading communities of the Archipelago, without ever exercising any of that influence which our predecessors, the Hindus and the Mahomedans, exercised. But if we would seek to assimilate the natives of the Archipelago to those of Europe, and take them with us on our path of advancement, we must, like the Hindus and Mahomedans, begin by acquiring a thorough and familiar knowledge of them.
Their political and material wants are so connected that whatever tends to remedy the latter must react on the former. It is no less the duty of the christian and the philanthropist for their
