The sovereign Prince of the Netherlands has, by a solemn act, abandoned his right to the feudal services of his native subjects in the Eastern Archipelago, but has at the same time reserved to the state the exclusive monopoly of the spices. It may perhaps have been deemed expedient, in aid of the finances of Great Britain, that this odious monopoly should have been permitted to remain for upwards of five years under her uncontrolled dominion; and that, while the cloves on Amboina were raised by forced services, the nutmeg gardens on Banda should have been cultivated by slaves. There may have been reasons also which induced her to continue the system of extirpation in the neighbouring islands, and to act up to those stipulations for depressing these unhappy countries, for which the Dutch have in all ages been so justly reprobated. But now that the sovereign, to whom they are again ceded, has recommenced the Dutch administration in the Eastern seas, with an appearance of something more like justice, humanity, and sound policy than we have been in the habit of witnessing for the last two centuries, it is to be hoped that the profits of two annual cargoes of spices, whatever they may amount to, will never be considered of sufficient importance to tempt a great and magnanimous nation longer to trample on the hallowed rights of humanity, and to persevere in a system, which, while it may have afforded a temporary profit, has tended to degrade, depopulate, and destroy the fairest countries in creation. If the nutmeg and clove trees were allowed to grow where Providence would seem to have ordained that in their natural course they should, and this trade were opened to a free commerce, nutmegs might perhaps be procured as cheap as betel-nut, and cloves as cheap as pepper.