Among the numerous and important evils which result from this complex and ill-defined system, may be reckoned its affording an opening for the caprice and tyranny of the rulers, and producing a general insecurity both of person and property. The state of the Moslem religion is very different here from what it is in the old Mahomedan states, such as Persia, Turkey, or Arabia. In many of the Eastern Islands paganism still remains: in some districts there are many Christians, and the Chinese swarm in every Malayan country, and live intermingled with the Mahomedans. This mixture of religion and tribes has tended, in some degree, to soften the intolerance of the Mahomedan system among the Malayan nations, and neither the positive authority of _Islam_, nor the persuasions of their Arab teachers, have hitherto been able to induce them to abandon entirely their own peculiar usages and customs. With some of these usages, especially those which relate to wrecks on the Malayan shores, and the commercial regulations of the different ports, it becomes incumbent on the supreme European authority to interfere. In revising these, the opportunity might perhaps be taken to procure the abandonment of some of those maxims and usages, which have the strongest tendency to prevent their improvement, and counteract the habits of civilized life. A circumstance highly injurious to the commerce of the Malayan nations is the trading monopoly, which in most of the Malayan ports is actually assumed by the chiefs. Of this monopoly there is no trace in the _Undang úndang_ of the _Maláyus_, or in the fragments of their history which have yet come to light, and it is a question whether this pernicious practice has not been copied from the monopoly regulations of the Dutch. Where this system has been fully carried into effect, it has generally succeeded effectually in repressing industry and commercial enterprize; and where it has been for some time established, its evils have been felt so deeply, that it may be presumed the Malayan chiefs might be induced to relinquish it in favour of a regulated commerce, whenever they might regain the power of collecting regular duties in lieu of it. The Malayan laws and customs are fortunately of a very different kind from those adopted among the great nations of the continent in their vicinity. These nations, especially the Siamese and Cochin Chinese, have long been accustomed to look up to the Chinese, with whom they coincide in religion and manners, and from whom they have adopted their exclusive maxims of foreign intercourse. The _Málayus_, on the other hand, though accustomed to look up to the Arabs as their religious instructors, seldom hesitate to admit the superiority of both the Europeans and Chinese, both to themselves and to the Arabs, in the arts of life and general science; and it is certainly our interest to encourage them in this mode of thinking, and to prevent the increase of the Arab influence among them.