were not three thousand houses in
the whole city, nor six thousand Chinese throughout that kingdom,
and not a junk that had visited it for years. But the ports of Borneo
have not dwindled away more than Acheen, Johore, Malacca, Bantam,
Ternate, &c. All these places likewise cut a splendid figure in
the eyes of our first navigators, and have since equally shared a
proportionate obscurity.

Were the causes required which have eclipsed the prosperity of Borneo
and the other great emporiums of Eastern trade that once existed, it
might be readily answered--a decay of commerce. They have suffered the
same vicissitudes as Tyre, Sidon, or Alexandria; and like Carthage--for
ages the emporium of the wealth and commerce of the world, which now
exhibits on its site a piratical race of descendants in the modern
Tunisians and their neighbors the Algerines--the commercial ports of
Borneo have become a nest of banditti, and the original inhabitants
of both, from similar causes--the decay of commerce--have degenerated
to the modern pirates of the present day.

In exact proportion as the intercourse of the Europeans with China
has increased, in precise ratio has the decrease of their direct trade
in junks become apparent. The Portuguese first, and subsequently the
Dutch, mistress of the Eastern seas, exacted by treaties and other ways
the Malay produce at their own rates, and were consequently enabled
to undersell the junks in China. But these powers went further;
by settling at ports on Borneo, or by their guardas de costas, they
compelled the ports of Borneo to send their produce, calculated for
the China market, to Malacca and Batavia, which at length completely
cut up the direct trade by means of the Chinese junks.

The loss of their direct intercourse with China affected their
prosperity in a variety of ways. First, by this circuitous direction
of their trade, the gruff goods, as rattans, sago, cassia, pepper,
ebony, wax, &c., became too expensive to fetch the value of this
double carriage and the attendant charges, and in course of time were
neglected; the loss of these extensive branches of industry must
have thrown numbers out of employment. But the loss of the direct
intercourse with China had more fatal effects; it prevented large
bodies of annual emigrants from China settling upon her shores;
it deprived them of an opportunity of visiting the Borneon ports,
and exercising their mechanical arts and productive industry; and