428 DUTCH HISTORY their own country by the fertility of Java, its commerce, and the comparative security which the vigour of European arms and legislation ensured to their properties, had settled and co- lonized in the island in great numbers. The conscious weakness of the Dutch rendered them jealous of the power, the numbers, and wealth of this class of their subjects. They goaded them by excessive taxations, arbitrary punishments, and frightful executions. The intelligence, num- bers, and nationality of the Chinese, made this systematic oppression insupportable to them. Unlike the less civilized inhabitants of the country, though under local circumstances so much less advantageous, they felt their capacity of combining for resistance, and being once fairly Kjommitted, their ambition prompted them to look to the dominion of the island. Both Javanese and Dutch writers detail the circumstances of the mas- sacre, and from their accounts, it is no difficult matter to collect the most instructive facts con- nected with it. The persecution and oppression of the Chinese took a more active character from the year 1730 ; but it was not until the year 1710 that the revolt commenced. The matter was brought to a crisis by the forcible seizure of a number of Chinese, and their deportation to Ceylon, under pretext of their being en- gaged in committing irregularities in the vicinity of BataTia. On this event, the Chinese ia the vi^.
