"At Bombay, Surat, and Demaun, and other places along the coast of Malabar, at Bengal, and at Pegu, the English build many large and fine ships, which last a length of time, especially those of Bombay and Malabar built, although I believe the wood produced there, however good, is not equal to the teak of Java." CHAPTER V. _Commerce--Advantageous Situation of Java for Commercial Intercourse--Importance of Batavia in particular--Native Trade--Roads and Inland Carriage--Markets--Influence of the Chinese--Coasting Trade--Exports and Imports--Trade with the Archipelago--China--Kamtschatka--Western India--Europe, &c.--Dutch Commercial Regulations--State of the Eastern Islands--Advantages which they possess--Causes of the Depression of the Nations and Tribes which inhabit them--Japan Trade._ From the importance which the Dutch, in the days of their greatness, attached to their East-India commerce, of which Batavia was the emporium, and the importance which this commerce conferred upon them, from the desire excited in the other nations to obtain a share in its advantages, and the crimes committed to maintain its undivided monopoly, some idea may be formed of its magnitude and value. When the French troops, in the summer of 1672, under Louis XIV. had overrun the territory of Holland, with the rapidity and irresistible force of the sea after bursting the dykes, the Republic formed the magnanimous resolution of transporting its wealth, its enterprise, and its subjects to another hemisphere, rather than submit to the terms of the conqueror, and fixed upon Batavia, already the seat of its eastern commerce, as the capital of its new empire. They could have found shipping in their own ports for the transport of fifty thousand families; their country was inundated with the ocean, or in possession of the invader; their power and political importance consisted in their fleets and colonies; and having been accustomed to maintain their naval superiority by the fruits of their eastern trade, and to buy the corn of Europe with the spices of the Moluccas, they would have felt less from a removal of their seat of empire from the north of Europe to the south of Asia, than any people who ever contemplated a similar change; while, at the same time, the very project of such an extraordinary emigration, and the means they had of carrying it into effect, give us the highest ideas of the independent spirit inspired by their free government, and of their commercial prosperity, derived, in a great degree, from their eastern establishments and connexions.