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II. Dutch Views and Uses of British Policy in India around 1800

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 June 2011

Robert van Niel
Robert van Niel
Affiliation:
(University of Hawaii)
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Extract

On August 31, 1803, a group of seven men, comprising the Commission for East Indies Affairs (Commissie tot de Oost-Indische Zaken), submitted the final report of its deliberations to the Government of the State of the Batavian Republic (Staatsbewind der Bataafsche Republiek) in The Hague. This Commission had been called into existence in November 1802 to make recommendations on how best to administer and conduct trade with the nation's possessions in the East Indies in a fashion that would render the greatest advantage to the nation's finances and profit to its commerce. Only a couple of years earlier Holland's monopolistic United East Indies Company (VOC) had been terminated by the Republic, and its assets and liabilities assumed by the State. The liabilities were immediately identifiable, for they consisted of debts which had to be paid in hard cash. The assets, on the other hand, consisted of territories – most of which had fallen under English control – and factories that somehow had to be made profitable, but seemed, given the then-existing conditions in the world, to be almost out of reach. The Commission was supposed to make recommendations as to how the remaining, territories of the VOC should be managed and how the trade with the East Indies and Asia in general was to be made profitable. This was no small task, so it may appear somewhat wondrous that the Commission was able to complete its work in less than ten months. The dispatch with which the Commission's work was completed, however, is more understandable if it is realised that the financial collapse of the VOC had been openly recognised since 1786, and various proposals for either reform or total change of the Company's system had been presented and discussed. These alternative proposals were well known to the members of the Commission. Their work, therefore, involved striking a balance among these proposals rather than creating a system de novo.

Type
Articles
Information
Itinerario , Volume 12 , Special Issue 1: The Ancien Regime in India and Indonesia , March 1988 , pp. 17 - 32
Copyright
Copyright © Research Institute for History, Leiden University 1988

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References

Notes

1 Mr.Mijer, P., Verzameling van Instniclien, Ordonnancien en RegUmenten [hellip;] (Batavia 1848)Google Scholar report 119–222, appendices 225–344.

2 van Deventer, M.L., editor of volume XII of De Jonge's De opkomst van het Nederlandsch gezag in Oost-lndië (ʼs-Gravenhage 1884) 335 ftntGoogle Scholar.

3 Mr.Sillem, J.A., Dirk van Hogendorp (1761–1822) (Amsterdam 1890) 111–130Google Scholar. See also van Deven ter's, M.L. review of this book in Nederlandsche Spectator 42 & 43 (1890) 1–16Google Scholar.

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5 Mijer, Verzameling van Instructien, 127.

6 Ibidem, 128,131.

7 Ibidem, 132–138.

8 D. van Hogendorp, Bericht van den Tegenwoordigen Toestand der Bataafsche Bezittingen in Oost-Indië en den Handel op Dezelve (2nd pr.; Delft 1800).

9 Ibidem, 37.

10 Ibidem, 143.

11 Ibidem, 192.

12 ‘Consideratien over den toestand waar in de O.I. Compagnie zig in dit oogenblik bevind, en de middelen om de zaaken buiten confusie te houden’, dd. 7 Maart 1791 in Staat der Generate Nedelandsche Oosl-Indische Compagnie[…] (Amsterdam 1792)Google Scholar.

13 Mr.Nederburgh, S.C., Echte Stukken betreffende het volbragt onderzoek der Verrichtingen van de Generale Commissie in den jare 1791 benoemdgeweest over de O.I. Bezittingen van den Staat en de Kaab de Goede Hoop, benevens den Finalen Uitslag van Hetzelve('s Haage 1803)Google Scholar.

14 Mr.Nederburgh, S.C., Verhandeling over de Vragen: of, en in hoe verre, het nuttig en noodzakelijk zijn Zoude, de Oost Indische bezittingen van deezer staat, ofte sommigen derzelver, te brengen op den voet de West Indische volksplantingen; en of, en in hoe verre, het voordeeliger voor dit gemenebest, en desselfs ingezeetenen, zijn zoude, den handel op voormelde bezittingen bij aanhoudendheid door eene uitsluitende Compagnie te drijven, dan wel die voor allen 's Lands ingezeetenen open te stellen; en in dit laatste geval: op welke voorwaarden, en onder welke bepalingen('s Haage 1802)Google Scholar.

15 Summier rapport op de vraag ‘op welke meest menageuse voet en minst omslaggelijke wijze de Staat der Maalschappij in Indië zich bij voortduring zal kunnen soutineeren.’+ Bijlagen, 4 Juli 1795, Algemeen Rijksarchief, The Hague (ARA), Comité tot de Zaken van de Oost-Indische Handel en Bezittingen, No. 54. The report without the appendices is reprinted in De Jonge, Opkomst XII, 335–358.

16 Bolts, W., Considerations on India Affairs (2 vols.; London 1772–1775)Google Scholar. Translated as Élat civil, polilique et commercant; […] (La Haye 1775)Google Scholar. Nederburgh cites him on page 40 of his Verhandeling.

17 van Hogendorp, D., Nadere Uitlegging en Ontwikkeling van het Stelsel van Dirk van Hogendorp. (In de Hage 1802)Google Scholar.

18 Ibidem, 5–7.

19 Guha, R., A Rule of Property for Bengal (Paris/La Haye 1863) 97ffGoogle Scholar.

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21 Stokes, E., The English Utilitarians and India (Oxford 1959) 81 ffGoogle Scholar.

22 For example, Nederburgh's 1798 correspondence concerning the expansion of sugar cultivation in Java. ARA, Van Alphen/Engelhard 1900, No. 180.

23 Sillem, Dirk van Hogendorp, 10–11.

24 Firminger, W.K. ed., The Fifth Report from the Select Committee of the House of Commons on the Affairs of the East India Company. Dated 28th July 1812 II (Calcutta 1917)Google Scholar.

25 Bastin, J., Raffles' Ideas on the Land Rent System in Java and the Mackenzie Land Tenure Commission ('s-Gravenhage 1954)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

26 Substance of a Minute recorded by the Honourable Thomas Stamford Raffles […] on the 11th February 1814; on the introduction of an improved system of internal management and the establishment of a land rental on the Island of Java […] (London 1814)Google Scholar.

27 van Deventer, S., Bijdragen lot de kennis van het landelijk stelsel op Java I (Zaltbommel 1865) 281ffGoogle Scholar.

28 Bastin, Raffles' Ideas, 150–154.

29 Van Hogendorp, Nadere Uitlegging, 15, 34.

30 S. van Deventer, Bijdragen landelijk stelsel I, 87. Also see: ‘Memorie geschreven door den Heer Muntinghe, Lid van den Raad, den 28Julij 1813’, Nederlandsche Hermes 3, 2 (1828) 263–283Google Scholar.

31 It has been pointed out that Raffles may have had at his disposal a copy of a statistical chart entitled Calculative Berekening van de inkoomsten en voordeelen, die het eiland Java, onder ten goed bestuur, zoude kunnen opteveren, vergeleken met andere bezittingen en uolksplanlingen. It is true that this chart is inserted into Dirk van Hogendorp's Stukken, raakende den tegenwoordigen toestand der Bataafsche Beziltingen in Oost-Indie […] (1801) following page 399. However, the chart originated earlier as part of the Rapport van Commissarissen Ceneraal aan de Bewindhebbers […] (1795) of Nederburgh et al., and was circulated separately long before the content of this report was made public. Raffles could have obtained a copy of this chart from any number of sources.