re virtually the
lords paramount, and exercise in fact many of the functions of
sovereignty. The advantages derived to the subject from their sway, both
in a political and civil sense, are infinitely greater than persons at a
distance are usually inclined to suppose. Oppressions may be some times
complained of at the hands of individuals, but, to the honour of the
Company's service let me add, they have been very rare and of
inconsiderable magnitude. Where a degree of discretionary power is
intrusted to single persons abuses will, in the nature of things, arise
in some instances; cases may occur in which the private passions of the
Resident will interfere with his public duty; but the door has ever been
open for redress, and examples have been made. To destroy this influence
and authority in order to prevent these consequences were to cut off a
limb in order to remove a partial complaint. By the Company's power the
districts over which it extends are preserved in uninterrupted peace.
Were it not for this power every dusun of every river would be at war
with its neighbour. The natives themselves allow it, and it was evinced,
even in the short space of time during which the English were absent from
the coast, in a former war with France. Hostilities of district against
district, so frequent among the independent nations to the northward,
are, within the Company's jurisdiction, things unheard of; and those
dismal catastrophes which in all the Malayan islands are wont to attend
on private feuds but very rarely happen. "I tell you honestly," said a
dupati, much irritated against one of his neighbours, "that it is only
you," pointing to the Resident of Laye, "that prevents my plunging this
weapon into his breast." The Resident is also considered as the protector
of the people from the injustice and oppression of the chiefs. This
oppression, though not carried on in the way of open force, which the
ill-defined nature of their authority would not support, is scarcely less
grievous to the sufferer. Expounders of the law, and deeply versed in the
chicanery of it, they are ever lying in wait to take advantage of the
necessitous and ignorant, till they have stripped them of their property,
their family, and their personal liberty. To prevent these practices the
partial administration of justice in consequence of bribes, the
subornation of witnesses, and the like iniquities, a continual exertion
of the Resident's attention and authori