It is impossible to convey a just idea of the native or foreign trade of Java, without adverting to the commercial and political state of the other islands of the Archipelago. Of these it may be stated generally, that the interior is possessed by the natives, collected under leaders who have taken advantage of the great extent of the country, in proportion to its population, to render themselves independent of the lawful sovereign; that the coast is occupied, in many places, either by pirates, by some of the ruder tribes whom it is dangerous to invade, or by adventurous traders, chiefly _Maláyus_ and _Búgis_. These traders arrive in well-armed vessels, which some of them remain to protect; others travel up the country, not unfrequently to the distance of a hundred miles, and at the change of the monsoon return to their companions, charged either with plunder, or with the fruits of a commerce carried on with the natives at an exorbitant profit. The pirates, as they drive the peaceable and honest trader from the coast, recruit their numbers from among the seafaring men to whom he used to give employment. The decay of commerce is accelerated; and the natives retreat into the interior, where, for want of a market, they cease to collect the rich productions of their country, and rapidly sink into poverty and barbarism. The sea and the coast remain a scene of violence, rapine, and cruelty. The mouths of the rivers are held by lawless banditti, who interrupt the trade of those who inhabit their banks, and capture the vessels destined for the inland towns: the bays and harbours are entirely within their power; and in these smooth seas they are never driven a moment from their stations, or diverted by danger from their predatory vigilance. The sovereigns of the country have too little authority over their nominal subjects; and their resources are too confined for them to oppose any effectual resistance to these outrages. All restraints are withdrawn by the divisions and weakness of the native governments; and men, rendered desperate by the experience of lawless violence, are induced to join in the system of plunder against which they can find no protection.