and
his skilful arrangements. It is to be hoped, that our gratitude to him
will be in proportion, and that Her Majesty's ministers will, in their
distribution of honour and emoluments among those who have served them,
not forget to bestow some upon one who has so well served his country.

The largest, and perhaps the most important of the islands in this
archipelago, although at present the most barbarous, and the most
hostile to us, is that of Papua, or New Guinea. The inhabitants are as
well inclined to commerce as the other natives of the archipelago, and
do at present carry on a considerable trade with the Chinese, who repair
there every year in their junks, which they fill with valuable cargoes
adapted for the Chinese market. The Chinese have found the trade with
New Guinea so lucrative, that they are doing all that they can to secure
the monopoly of it, and with this view take every occasion, and do all
that they possibly can, to blacken the character of the Europeans in the
minds of the inhabitants. It is to this cause that the Papuan's
hostility to Europeans, and especially to the English, is to be
ascribed; and before we have any chance of commerce with this people, it
is necessary that the Chinese should be driven away from the island,
that they may no longer injure us by their malicious fabrications. This
will be but a just retribution for the falsehoods and lies which they
have circulated to our disadvantage. And there is another reason why we
should be little scrupulous in taking this measure, which is, that one
of their principal articles of commerce with the Papuans consists in
slaves, which are taken on board by the Chinese, and sold at Borneo, and
the adjacent islands of the archipelago, at a great profit. To obtain
these slaves, the Chinese stimulate the Papuan tribes to war with each
other, as is done for the same purpose in Africa. As this traffic is
very considerable, and we are as much bound to put down the slave trade
in the east as in the west, we have full warrant for driving their junks
away, and, by so doing, there is little doubt but that in a few years we
shall secure all the valuable trade of this island to ourselves.

Borneo is, however, the island (or continent) to which our first
attention will be particularly devoted. Up to the present we know little
of it except its coasts and a portion of its rivers; but it is here that
our principal attention must be given, as in its rivers and the