pts of rival European powers to interfere in the
trade of the same country, written contracts, attended with much form and
solemnity, were entered into with the former; by which they engaged to
oblige all their dependants to cultivate pepper, and to secure to us the
exclusive purchase of it; in return for which they were to be protected
from their enemies, supported in the rights of sovereignty, and to be
paid a certain allowance or custom on the produce of their respective
territories.

PRICE.

The price for many years paid to the cultivators for their produce was
ten Spanish dollars or fifty shillings per bahar of five hundredweight or
five hundred and sixty pounds. About the year 1780, with a view to their
encouragement and the increase of investment, as it is termed, the sum
was augmented to fifteen dollars. To this cost is to be added the custom
above mentioned, varying in different districts according to specific
agreements, but amounting in general to one dollar and a half, or two
dollars on each bahar, which is distributed amongst the chiefs at an
annual entertainment; and presents are made at the same time to planters
who have distinguished themselves by their industry. This low price, at
which the natives submit to cultivate the plantations, affording to each
man an income of not more than from eight to twelve dollars yearly, and
the undisturbed monopoly we have so long possessed of the trade, from
near Indrapura northward to Flat Point southward, are doubtless in a
principal degree to be attributed to the peculiar manner in which this
part of the island is shut up, by the surfs which prevail along the
south-west coast, from communication with strangers, whose competition
would naturally produce the effect of enhancing the price of the
commodity. The general want of anchorage too, for so many leagues to the
northward of the Straits of Sunda, has in all ages deterred the Chinese
and other eastern merchants from attempting to establish an intercourse
that must be attended with imminent risk to unskilful navigators; indeed
I understand it to be a tradition among the natives who border on the
sea-coast that it is not many hundred years since these parts began to be
inhabited, and they speak of their descent as derived from the more
inland country. Thus it appears that those natural obstructions, which we
are used to lament as the greatest detriment to our trade, are in fact
advantages to which it in a great measu