But of whatever merit might have been the plans suggested by the Commissioners in India on the 4th July, 1795, the calamities which had already befallen the mother country were followed by an event, which it seems the Commissioners had hardly dared to suspect, and which, in every case, would have frustrated all their designs. This was the dissolution of the Company, in consequence of a resolution taken to that effect on the 24th December, by the body then representing the government of the United States of Holland. New views of policy were of course suggested by this important change. In the year 1800 there appeared a small volume, entitled "A Description of Java and of its principal Productions, shewing the Advantages to be derived therefrom under a better Administration, by Mr. Dirk Van Hogendorp," in which the writer, after observing that the true state of Java and its importance to the mother country had hitherto been little known, or at least that no correct ideas had yet been formed in Holland with regard to its value, fertility, population, and advantageous situation for trade, establishes, "1. That the system on which the trade in India had hitherto been conducted and the possessions administered, was no longer good under present circumstances, but contained in itself the seeds of decline and ruin. "2. That the exclusive trade was in its nature injurious, and naturally caused the ruin of the colonies. "3. That under a different system, those colonies would flourish, and yield much greater advantages than ever. "4. That a revenue, founded on the principles of freedom of trade, property in the soil, and equality of imposts, could be easily introduced. "5. And finally, that all the benefits which would thereby accrue to the mother country, from the territorial revenue, the duties on trade, the industry and wealth for which that trade would furnish employment, and the treasures which the distribution of produce throughout Europe must bring into the mother country, would greatly exceed the highest advantages that could be calculated upon, even under the most favourable prospects, by the means of the fallen Company or a continuation of its former system." Many parts of this pamphlet abound in violence and invective, and others are too highly coloured; but with these exceptions, it may be safely asserted that it contains a more correct view of the state of society, and of the resources of the country, than any paper which had preceded it, and the author is most justly entitled to all the credit of having chalked out to his countrymen the road to honour and prosperity, in the future administration of the Dutch East-Indian colonies.