liardly existence any where. The condition of society
scarce admits of it, for freemen, as occupants,
till the soil, and afford the master a higher profit
than his own ignorance and supineness could give
him, by his superintendence of the labour of more
nominal slaves. Slaves among the Indian islanders,
then, may be looked upon as a kind of personal
luxury, contributing, even according to their own
estimation, rather to pomp and display than profit.
It gratifies the vanity of a master to be the uncontrolled
and unresponsible lord of the life and fortune
of his servant, and the supple and flexible
manners of the slave afford his pride a gratification
which could not be so well satisfied by the
less servile and uncertain attentions of a freeman.
The slave among the Indian islanders is treated
with kindness and tenderness, and considered
rather in the light of a child, or favoured domestic,
than even a dependant.
Whenever the services of freemen may be obtained
on nearly the same terms, the obvious inutility,
or rather striking disadvantages, of slavery become
evident, and this is the true cause why slavery is
unknown to the present race of Javanese, among
whom, from the internal evidence of language,
and from their writings, it is proved, in earlier
times, to have existed as among the other tribes.
The numbers and docility of his countrymen
will now furnish a Javanese chief with attentions
as supple and servile as any slaves could administer.
On the principle now stated, I think it will be
found, that, wherever the manners of the lower orders
are most untractable, there slavery mostly prevails,
and where they are most docile, it is rarest.
Tor the extremes of both, Celebes and Java may be
quoted as examples.
The severest lot of the condition of servitude is
no where experienced in the Indian islands. That
lot can only be felt in the higher stages of civilization,
where there is an immeasurable distance between
the political condition of the master and the
slave—where the latter is considered as a portion
of the stock of the former, and the spirit of
gain excludes every other consideration. Of all the
masters of slaves in the Indian islands, the Chinese,
and the Arabs, alone are disposed to make this use
of slaves, but they are themselves depressed orders,
jealously watched by their European masters, and,
no doubt, in some measure influenced in the treatment
of their slaves by the mild example of their
native neighbours. The Dutch, in their predilection
for slaves, are actuated by the same principles
as the natives of the country. ' Their vanity is
gratified by their suppleness and docility, and
even in Java, where they might be more cheaply,
and as agreeably, served by freemen, their early
estrangement from the inhabitants of that country