In many other respects besides those which we have stated, the commercial policy adopted by the Dutch, with regard to the Eastern islands and the Malayan states in general, was contrary to all principles of natural justice, and unworthy of any enlightened and civilized nation[68]. From authentic accounts it appears, that they attempted to destroy and eradicate from a vast range of countries the most advantageous produce of the land, in order to favour their own petty traffic, and burnt a large proportion of the residue, in order to keep up their monopoly price in Europe on a small proportion of this produce. Against errors of this kind, it is to be hoped the more enlightened policy of the present era will be an effectual preventive; but there are others, so interwoven with the interests of these islands, and so local in their nature, that they may not so easily attract the attention of the governing power. One feature of the Dutch policy in the Eastern Isles seems to have been the exclusion of all foreign trade, whether European or native; excepting at certain specified ports under their own immediate control. This policy was as much connected with the general government of the country, as with the commercial profits of the Company; for in an Archipelago of such unparalleled extent, inhabited by tribes of such various characters, formidable in a high degree from their very want of civilization, it was necessary to bring forward some of the most powerful and most favourably situated of these numerous states, and to hold them answerable for the proceedings of the several districts under their influence. Such views gave rise to the establishment of certain regular and determined trading ports, and led to the vigilant suppression of all attempts at competition and independence on the part of the inferior states.