Borneo and the Indian Archipelago: with drawings of costume and sceneryMarryat, Frank
History
Borneo and the Indian Archipelago: with drawings of costume and scenery
Marryat, Frank
Borneo -- Description and travel; Malay Archipelago -- Description and travel
So much for the southern portion of this immense archipelago. We have
still to examine the more northern. Indeed, when we look upon the map,
and see the quantity of territory with which we may eventually find the
means of trading,--the millions who, but for the jealousy of the
governments, would be glad to receive our manufactures,--we are lost in
conjecture as to what extent it might eventually be driven. In the north
we should certainly have more difficulties to contend with; and it will
require that the whole of the naval force in India should be, for a
time, devoted to this object. I believe it is as much from their utter
ignorance of our power, as from any other cause, that we have hitherto
been so unsuccessful at Japan; but the object we have in view may be
effected, provided that a certain degree of the _fortiter in re_ be
combined with the _suaviter in modo_. The Japanese now carry on a large
trade with China, and also a confined trade with the Dutch, to whom they
have allowed a factory upon a small island; but they treat the Dutch
with the greatest indignity, and the Dutch submit to it, and, in so
doing, have rendered the Europeans vile in the estimation of the
Japanese. This is the error which must be destroyed by some means or
other, even if it should be necessary to pick a quarrel with them, as we
have already done with the Chinese. At the same time that I admit the
expediency of so doing, I by no means assert that we shall be altogether
justified.
There is another point worthy of consideration, which is, that a whale
fishery dépôt might be made with great success in this archipelago, any
where to the southward and eastward; and we might recover a large
portion of that lucrative employment, which, by the means of British
seamen employed in American vessels, has been wrested from us; for
although, at the commencement, the whale fishery from the States was
carried on by Americans only, since it has so enormously increased, at
least two-thirds of the people employed in the vessels are English
seamen, who have become expert in the profession. It is much to be
lamented that the laudable exertions of Mr. Enderby and others to revive
this lucrative employment for our vessels and seamen has hitherto
failed, and that some part of our surplus capital has not been devoted
to an object so important to us as a maritime country.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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