Such was their treatment of the natives, that the population of one province, _Banyuawngi_, which in 1750 amounted to upwards of 80,000 souls, in 1811 was reduced to 8,000. It is no less remarkable, says Sir Stamford Raffles, that while in all the capitals of British India the population has increased, wherever the Dutch influence has prevailed the work of depopulation has followed. In the Moluccas the oppressions and the consequent depopulation was monstrous. Whenever the natives have had the opportunity they have fled from the provinces under their power to the native tracts. With the following extract from Sir Stamford Raffles we will conclude this dismal notice of the deeds of a European people, claiming to be Christian, and what is more, Protestant and Reformed. “Great demands were at all times made on the peasantry of Java for the Dutch army. Confined in unhealthy garrisons, exposed to unnecessary hardships and privations, extraordinary casualties took place amongst them, and frequent new levies became necessary, while the anticipation of danger and suffering produced an aversion to the service, which was only aggravated by the subsequent measures of cruelty and oppression. The conscripts raised in the provinces were usually sent to the metropolis by water; and though the distance be short between any two points of the island, a mortality similar to that of a slave-ship in the middle passage took place on board these receptacles of reluctant recruits. They were generally confined in the stocks till their arrival at Batavia.... Besides the supply of the army, one half of the male population of the country was constantly held in readiness for other public services, and thus a great portion of the effective hands were taken from their families, and detained at a distance from home in labours which broke their spirit and exhausted their strength. During the administration of Marshal Daendals, it has been calculated that the construction of public roads alone destroyed the lives of at least ten thousand workmen. The transport of government stores, and the capricious requisitions of government agents of all classes, perpetually harassed, and frequently carried off numbers of the people. If to these drains we add the waste of life occasioned by insurrections which tyranny and impolicy excited in Chéribon; the blighting effects of the coffee monopoly, and forced services in the Priáng’en Regencies, and the still more desolating operations of the policy pursued, and the consequent anarchy produced, in Bantam, we shall have some idea of the depopulating causes which existed under the Dutch administration.” CHAPTER XV. THE ENGLISH IN INDIA.—SYSTEM OF TERRITORIAL ACQUISITION.