^68 COMMERCE WITH dement of the Dutch where there was a semblance of free trade, became, by means of it, a great and flourishing city, while every other establish- ment belonging to Holland was ruined by being deprived of it. Manilla affords another example, so that we may see that the worst governments of Europe are superior to the best governments of Asia, when they only forbear from interrupting the na- tural effects of European institutions, and the usual course of commerce and colonization, by vain at- tempts at regulation. Perhaps the proudest ex- ample of the success of European establishments, formed in the Archipelago, is that of the little settlement of Penang, or Prince of Wales Island, already quoted. This is a small spot of barren soil, having a good harbour, but too far to the west, or, in other words, too remote from the most populous and productive parts of the Archipelago, and entirely out of the way of the easiest and safest avenue, the Straits of Sunda. It was found with- out people, yet such was its rapid prosperity, that in twenty years it contained as many thousand inhabitants, and if, in the latter period of its his- tory, it had not been managed injudiciously, and the principles on which it was founded abandoned, its success might have gone on in the same ratio for many years. With respect to the administration of such a colony, as now projected, a few general hints only can be given. There ought to exist the most un- 10
