Various - Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847.

The Dutch have introduced a club, which they call Concordia , with billiard-tables, magazines, a reading-room, and a department for eating and drinking. Of this the voyagers were invited to be ordinary members. There was a book club among the English residents, where they enjoyed the sight of several new publications and periodicals. All this was a pleasant interchange for cruising among coral reefs, and being tossed about or starved in Torres Strait; and they seem to have enjoyed it completely. Besides the Dutch civilities, they had a general invitation from an English merchant, Mr Frazer, to his house a few miles in the country.

In those climates fresh air and cool rooms are the chief points. Mr Frazer's house was on the Indian model. It had but one story and one principal room, in the centre of the house, opening both before and behind, by two large doorways, into spacious porticoes, as large as the room itself, and supported by pillars. Each of the wings was occupied by three good bed-rooms. It stood in an enclosure of about an acre, with lawn, stables, and servants' offices. The floors were tiles, covered with cane matting in the principal room. As soon as it grows dusk, the central saloon is lighted up with many lamps, the doors and windows still remaining open; and every now and then a carriage drives up, some acquaintance drops in for an hour or two, joins the dinner-table, if he has not dined, or smokes a cigar if he has, and drives away again. This seems an easy life: and the colonist who can thus lounge through the world certainly has not much reason to exclaim against fortune. Yet this is the general life of all foreign settlements. Among the guests a Mr Frazer's they met a remarkable character, a Mr M'Cleland, a Scotsman. His history was adventurous; he was the individual mentioned in Washington Irving's Astoria , who, on the return of the party overland, left them, and pushed on ahead by himself across the Rocky Mountains. From America he went to China, and then fixed in Java, where, by energy and intelligence, he has made an ample fortune. He is now possessor of a large foundery in the island. The population of the town was about sixty thousand. The Javanese are described generally as an excellent race of people, patient, good-tempered, and very handy. The man who is to-day a carpenter, will turn blacksmith the next, and the peasant will become a sailor. They seem also to be as candid, as they are ingenious. One of the officers at table said that a servant who had been for several years his coachman, asked one day for permission to leave his service and go as a sailor. On his being asked in turn whether he had any complaint to make, the answer was, that he was only "tired of seeing the Colonel's face every day."

The Javanese gentleman is fond of dress, and his dress argues considerable opulence among his class. He usually wears a smart green velvet or cloth jacket with gold buttons, a shirt with gold studs, loose trousers, and sometimes boots, and a petticoat and sash, in the latter of which is always a large creese or dagger, ornamented with gold and diamonds. The women of the higher class live retired, those of the lower are seen every where.

Life seems singularly busy in Sourabaya. The Chinese gentleman is driving about all day in his pony chaise; the Chinese of the lower order is running about with his wicker-cases as a pedlar, or else selling fruit or cooked provisions, with a stove to keep them warm; or sitting, in the primitive style, under a tamarind tree, with silver and copper coinage before him to cash notes. And the river is as busy as the shore; there are always groups of people bathing; men and women are washing clothes; boats of all sizes, and for all purposes, laden with produce, or crowded with people, are constantly passing along. Then there are the troops, who, under the Dutch uniform, exhibit all castes and colours, from the European to the Negro – a force amounting to about two thousand infantry, besides artillery and cavalry; and all this goes on amid a perpetual clamour of voices, cries of every trade, tongues of every barbarism, and that wild haste and restless eagerness in every movement which belongs to seaport life in every portion of the globe.

The present discussions with the Dutch government on the subject of labour make it of importance to know something on the subject of their colonies in the East. It is a curious circumstance in the history of a people priding themselves on the liberty of commerce and their openness of dealing with mankind, that they seem to have always hidden their Indian policy under the most jealous reserve. They adopted this reserve from the first hour of their Indian navigation. But then Holland was a republic, and a republic is always tyrannical in proportion to its clamour for liberty, always oppressive in proportion to its promise of equal rights, and always rapacious in proportion to its professed respect for the principle of letting every man keep his own.

But though the cap is now exchanged for a crown, and the stadtholder is a monarch, the policy seems to flourish on the old footing of their close-handed fathers.

The Eastern dominions of Holland are under the authority of a governor-general and a council, composed of four members, and a vice-president; the governor-general being president. This sounds well at least for the liberty of discussion. But the sound is all. The power of the council consists simply in giving its opinion, to which the governor may refuse to listen. The governor receives his orders directly from the colonial minister at home, and the colonial minister, though apparently responsible to the sentiment of the Chambers, yet echoes those of the King.

But there is another authority which is supposed to rule the government itself. This invisible prime mover is a joint commercial company, the Maatschappy, established in 1824, with a charter giving it a strict monopoly of all commerce to the Indies for twenty-five years, which has been recently renewed for ten years more. The late King was a large shareholder, the present King is presumed to inherit his father's shares; most of the members of the Chambers are shareholders; and the Maatschappy, besides the supply of the islands with all necessaries, acts as agent for the Crown, receives the produce gathered by the authorities of Java, carries it home, sells it, and accounts for the proceeds to the Dutch government. But the company have a still heavier hold on the government, a debt for £3,340,000 sterling; and for this they have in mortgage the whole produce received in the East, the company deducting their own interest and commission before they pay the proceeds.

But we have the gratification of being told that even the Maatschappy does not carry every thing in triumph, and that there is a proposal to release one-third of the sugar produced by parties having contracts with them, on condition of the other two-thirds being delivered of a superior quality; and it is added that this relaxation has taken place simply from the distresses of the colonies, and in the hope of introducing specie, there being nothing in use at present but a debased copper coin. This measure would add to the trifling free produce of Java about 18,500 tons.

The Dutch possessions in the East are very large, and under due management would be of incalculable value. They comprise part of the island of Sumatra; the islands of Banca and Billiton; the islands of Bintang and Linga; the Macassar government, including parts of Celebes and Sumhana; the Molucca islands; the south-west half of Timor; some late conquests in Bali; and large portions of the southern part of Borneo, which have been recently formed into two residencies. For these statistics we are indebted to the narrative of Mr Jukes.

Java was first made known to us, with any degree of historical or physical accuracy, by the late Sir Stamford Raffles, the amiable and intelligent British Resident during its possession by our government between 1811 and 1816. But it was known to Europe for three centuries before. The Portuguese, once the great naval power, and most active discoverers in Europe, – so much do the habits and faculties of nations change, – had made to themselves a monopoly of eastern possession, after the passage round the Cape by De Gama, and fixed upon Java for their first settlement in the Indian Ocean. Almost a century passed, before their supremacy was disturbed. But then a new and dangerous rival appeared. The Dutch, already an enterprising and warlike nation, sweeping every sea with their commercial or military ambition, – so much have times been changed with them, too, – also fixed on Java, and formed a vigorous and thriving settlement at Bantam. In the beginning of the seventeenth century, the English, making a first and feeble attempt at eastern commerce, to the south of India, formed a factory at Bantam. But the Dutch, indignant at even the shadow of rivalry, broke down alike the decaying influence of the Portuguese and the rising influence of the English, planned a new and stately Eastern Capital, which, in the spirit of the Hollander, they planted in the most swampy part of the island; and, surrounded with ditches, in the closest resemblance to Holland, led a pestilential existence in the fatness of fens passable only through canals. Batavia was built, the proverbial place of filth and opulence. The Dutch gradually became masters of this fine island; divided it into seventeen provinces, and occupying the commercial coast, left the southern to the divided and helpless authority of the two native princes, the Sultan and the Susuhunan.