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Murder is comrntable by fine but in the case of a servant who killed his master, the culprit was punished by death, inflicted by the stabs of kreeses.

A chief giving offence to the Sultaun, or in his presence making use of any provoking language or gesture to another chief, must soon after send his kris to the Sultaun, in token of his submission, or he will endanger the sequestration of his property and banishment to the upper country, the usual punishment of the chiefs for contumacy or disaffection, which, in extreme cases, are punished with death.

Palembang is the only large town in the territories of the Sultaun, which may be said to centre within itself all the rank and wealth of the state. The chiefs, who hold by grant from the Sultaun the seignorial property and authority in the provinces and villages, only visit their Desas, as they call them, on occasions connected with the pursuit of trade, or other objects of personal interest. The greater part of their time is spent in the capital, where they are attended by a stipulated number of their vassals, who receive no pay or food from their chiefs during their appointed time of service. The number of men each village is required to provide for the service of its chiefs is regularly recorded in the books of the country, together with the proportion of tribute the inhabitants have to provide from the produce of the land in their occupation.

Of the several ranks, the first in dignity will of course include the sons and brothers of the Sultaun. His eldest son has properly the title of the Pangerang Ratoo, but the Sultaun Najm al Deen gave to his eldest son that of Prabo Anam, of equal dignity, in consequence of the eldest son of the Ex-Sultaun having received that of the Pangerang Ratoo.

The Pangerangs are generally allied by blood, some nearly and others more remotely, to the royal family. They take precedence according to the designation affixed to their title: thus, the Pangerang Chitra Kasooma was elevated, in reward of his services, to the superior rank of Pangerang Wiro de Radjo. The sons of Pangerangs have the title of Redeens by birth.

The chiefs below the ranks of Pangerang and Radeen come under the general denomination of Mantries, and rank accord

ing to their titles in the following order: Tomunggung, Ranga, Demang, Angbhey. These are taken indiscriminately from all classes of the inhabitants, and are advanced to their titles at the pleasure of the Sultaun, and according to the degree of their merits and services in his apprehension. Chinese, Arabs, Malayese, and every description of persons are found in this class, the only essential requisite to the attainment of the rank of Mantrie being the profession of the Mahommedan faith.

In the provinces, the head-men of the villages are generally selected by the inhabitants themselves, and their choice confirmed by the Sultaun. They have their customary titles of Dupattie, Lura, Proattin.

The districts and provinces which constitute the dominions of the Sultaun of Palembang derive their names from the principal rivers which flow through them, on the banks and tributary streams of which all the villages are situated. The most valuable of these provinces is probably that at the head of the river Moosee, called the Anak Moosee, so named from its embracing several streams which have confluence with the main river.

The general produce of this province consists in rice, pepper, cotton, wax, gambir, and gold dust.

The word soongie signifies river, and is prefixed to the name of it.

The number of men signifies the agreed proportion to be provided for the performance of feudal services.

The province of Mooste, which comprizes the Doosuus, situated on the main river, produces rice, cotton, wax, and pepper.

The province of Lamatang is so called from a large river of that name, which has its source to the eastward of that of the Mosee, which river it joins about eighty miles above the town of Palembang. It produces pepper, cotton, and rice.

The river Ogan, which also joins the Moosee about two miles above the town of Palembang, has its source in the Lampoong country.

The district of Rembang Ogan has its name from the river Rembang, which joins the Ogan before it reaches the Moosee. The Sultaun is supplied with rattan mats for his palace from this district.

The Beldida river, which gives name to a small district of that name, held in fee by its chief, under the Sultaun of Palembang, communicates with the river Ogan by means of a cut. The Beldida joins the Moosee, a few miles below the junction of Lamatang. The Banyo Asseen river embraces that province which lies in the vici. nity of the Pontian mouth of the river.

The Kamareeng is a large river which runs to the eastward of the Ogan, with which river it has a cut of communication. This river has its source in the Lampoong district, and is said to flow within twenty miles of the Tulang Bawung, the principal river in that country. The province comprized within the course of the Kamareeng is recorded in the Palembang books, but the inhabitants do not appear to have been brought under perfect subjection to the authority of the Sultaun of Palembang, to whom they have not of late years rendered any tribute. The province may be considered to embrace the tract of country between the Ogan and the sea-coast of the Straits of Banca. Its population is composed of a mixture of various tribes of Javanese, Buggis, and others.

There is a description of wild people in the interior of the Palembang dominions who refuse all intercourse, and who are called Orang Kubu. They are considered a very harmless and inoffensive pcople, and with them a trade is contrived to be carried on in the following manner. Clothes, tobacco, and other articles of which they have need, are placed at certain spots near where they are known to live: and the owner of the goods, as a signal to them, beats a gong when he retires from the place. These people then come and take away the goods, leaving a very full equivalent in honey, wax, and other articles they collect in their wild retreats.

The Sultaun enjoys, throughout all the provinces of his dominions, the exclusive monopoly of the trade in pepper. In payment of this produce, he delivers to the cultivators cloths, at fixed prices, which perhaps will allow to the Sultaun a profit of fifty per cent. on the original cost to him of these articles.

This is a privilege established by long custom, and which, coming under the denomination of Tiban and Toocan, awakens so much of the sympathy of Mr. Muntinghe. Asiatic Journ.-No. 97.

The Sultaun being the acknowledged lord of the land, confers grants of the se veral villages to the Pangerangs and Mantries, in value apportioned to the favour in which they are respectively held by him.

The assessment of each village is duly recorded, stating the quantity of produce agreed by the occupants of land to be provided to the chief, and the number of matagawies, or men, to be furnished for rowing his boat, and other duties required by him to be performed. This is the system of forced labours and deliveries which has further called forth the indignation of Mr. Muntinghe, and, as he may wish it to be thought, the humane interposition of the Netherlands' Government of Java; and this is the very identical system pursued in their own settlements of Amboyna. Not only so, but, in order to increase the value of their own forced cultivation and deliveries they destroy the natural productions of the neighbouring islands, and deprive their inhabitants of the gifts which nature has bestowed, because those gifts come in competition with their own interest, and, if allowed to be enjoyed, would, by increasing supply, depreciate the value of their trade.

Whatever may be the objections to this system, it is very evident that the contributions to the Sultaun and the chiefs are in fact payments of rent for the land. These rights of the Sultaun and the chiefs, founded on ancient custom and agreement with the occupants of the land annexed to the villages, ought to be held sacred, as constituting their property.

Whether it be good or whether it be bad, the Dutch Government had no right whatever to interfere with the property of the chiefs, nor with the laws and government of the country. To send a messenger through the country, proclaiming the ipse dixit of their ambassador to the Palembang state, and introducing, or endeavouring to introduce, anarchy and distrust, by an-nouncing to the people that they were no longer to pay their rents, nor to perform any of the ancient duties of their allegiance, was a barbarous and malignant outrage upon the feelings and interests of the Sultaun, the chiefs, and even the people themselves. It has deservedly produced an unanimous and determined resistance, which I trust may be eventually successful. VOL. XVII. F

Had it been the real object of the Netherlands' Government to ameliorate the condition of the people, and to animate them to the improvement of the advantages they enjoyed in a fertile soil, intersected by fine rivers, they would have employed time, conciliation, and persuasion, to impress the Sultaun and the chiefs with the belief of advantage to themselves, and benefit to the people, to be expected from a more perfect system of laws and administration. But their interest was too clearly, as I have already stated it, to usurp the country, and to prevent all opposition to such insidious design, by exciting the people against the chiefs, and the chiefs who supported one Sultaun against the chiefs who supported the other.

Of the general population of the country under the authority of the Sultaun of Palembang I can form no correct estimate. From the record of the number of men registered for feudal services, a rough computation would suggest the possibility of 75,000 scattered over the provinces, and 25,000 for the town of Palembang, making a total population of 100,000 souls.

The produce of the interior is brought to Palembang on large rafts of bamboos, upon which small houses are constructed of the same materials, covered in with nipah leaves. Thus completed, these rafts are called rackets, and the people who have charge of conveyance of the stores have no further trouble in the navigation of the river, than to keep the racket in the middle

of the stream.

Of positive slavery there is less, perhaps, than in most of the Malayan countries, or even those which constitute the present Dutch possessions.

Individuals who borrow money for the purpose of relieving themselves and families from urgent distress, owe service and fidelity to their creditors until the debt is discharged. They cannot quit their masters excepting they find another master willing to advance the amount of their debt, when their services revert to their new creditor. The debt is not only binding on the individual, but on his wife and children; but they cannot be sold, or made property of as slaves. This law has given another occasion for Mr. Muntinghe to make a dis

play of his tenderness and philanthropy towards the Palembang people.

No consideration of the rights of individuals, or regard for the independence of the state, were permitted to interrupt the accomplishment of Mr. Muntinghe's interpretation of relief to suffering humanity; his messenger is therefore charged to proclaim, through a country where he had no authority, or any other title than the superior strength of his government, the abolition of this abominable custom as he calls it.

I do not mean to advocate the morality or justice of such a custom, but I do assert, that in such cases a worse evil must accrue to society, from the principle of employing violence and fraud in the contemplation of beneficial results, than any evil from imperfection of laws.

However odious such a custom may appear, we may perhaps find some good effects to arise from it. In Palembang we see no houseless or starving poor, none "pining in want, or in a dungeon's gloom, shut from the common air and common use of their own limbs."

Of the revenues of the Sultaun of Palembang it would be difficult to form a monied estimate, as they consist of contributions in kind from the provinces, port duties, and feudal dues and services, which embrace a variety of contingencies.

On occasion of the marriage of the Sultaun's sons, all the principal inhabitants are required to erect a flag-staff, and, on the day of ceremony, to hoist a flag. This is a custom observed on any grand occasion of joy to the royal family. On the occasion of marriage the parties are weighed, when the chiefs are expected to contribute a proportion of silver money.

The island of Banca was the most profitable source of monied revenue, from which, some years ago, the Sultaun may be computed to have derived 150,000 dollars annually, by the sale of tin, on terms of his contract with the Dutch East India Company.-[Cal. Jour.

The foregoing article appears to have been written previously to the late subjugation of the kingdom of Palembang by the Netherlands Government.

Review of Books.

Statement of Facts relative to the Removal from India of Mr. Buckingham, late Editor of the Calcutta Journal, with an Appendix, pp. 59. xviii. 4to. Calcutta, April 1823. It is universally admitted to be the object of all human laws to promote the peace and welfare of the societies in which they are established. To this object they mainly contribute by restraining the natural rights of man, taking out of the hand of the individual the authority which by nature belongs to him, of avenging his own wrongs, and placing it in the hands of those, whom the social compact recognizes as the rulers of the community.There is one prerogative however, which it is obvious no human laws can reach, and this is, the right of thinking, on all subjects whatever, as a man pleases. As the exercise of such a right can never, by possibility, affect the welfare of men in a social state, it were both tyrannical and absurd to attempt restraining it. But, while its exercise cannot possibly trench upon the peace and welfare of society, its possession would be quite useless, were there no means of embodying our thoughts in such a manner, as to make them known to our fellow-creatures. Such means there are; and we need scarcely say, they are speaking and writing for printing,-for the employment of the press, is but an extended modification of writing, or employment of the pen. It is no less manifest, that as the social body could derive no advantage from the natural right of thinking, inherent in every man, without these practical modes of rendering it audible and visible,- so, on the other hand, as soon as the advantages are sought, there is a door opened to an opposite class of evils, which it is unnecessary to enumerate. Accordingly all legislators that ever existed, have without scruple interfered with the right of publishing one's thoughts, either by

word of mouth, or writing; and as governments are termed free or despo tic, in proportion as their laws and institutions keep near to, or recede far from, the natural rights of man, so may the degree of liberty of speech, and liberty of published thought through the press, which exists in any state, be taken as a pretty just measure of the political liberty which its institutions bestow upon it. It is, in fact, the being allowed to exercise this right at all, that distinguishes a free from a despotic Government. In the latter, freedom of specch—or, what is really the same thing-freedom of the press, cannot exist at all; and even in the more free, pretending to the name of civilized, certain restraints have always been imposed upon this natural right. The laws of such a free state may, indeed, be so framed, that the requisite restraints shall be imposed before the thoughts of the individual are published to the community, in order that nothing, tending to hurt the interests of the society, may be propagated among the members composing it; or they may be so laid down, as to leave to every one the freedom of saying or writing what he pleases, subject to penalties enacted, should he say or publish what is injurious to the public peace and welfare. In states where censorships of the press are established, the former of these modes is to be found; the latter prevails in England, and other countries generally termed free.— It is clear, however, that in neither the one nor the other does freedom of the press, in its most extended and natural sense, exist. This freedom can only be found among savages, and in the absence of every thing like government.

Were it possible to find men so divested of prejudice and passion, that their decisions, in determining what is or is not injurious to society, might be implicitly relied upon, as equitable

and just, it cannot admit of a doubt that a censorship of the press, previous to publication, would in every respect be preferable to, and better calculated to prevent the evils of improper publication of one's thoughts, than the mode of restraining these evils by the punishment of delinquents, after an open and impartial investigation into their alleged existence. It were in vain, however, to look for such an entire absence of passion and prejudice as we have supposed; and although judges and juries are liable to influence, as well as censors, it cannot be disputed that, as human nature exists, the latter mode of restraining the liberty of published thought-or liberty of the press -leaves the natural right of thinking the most untouched; and therefore the governments adopting it, come the nearest in their political institutions to freedom, as already defined.

Were the principles, which we have now laid down, uniformly kept in view, in discussing questions about the liberty of the press, less confusion would prevail upon this important subject than we find to be the case; and many measures of states, reprobated as destroying this noble right, would be found to be only affecting it, as all are obliged to do, in degree, not in kind. How far such encroachments are demandedor, what sometimes comes to be really the same question how far circumstances demand of states, to extend the right, and to approximate nearer to a practical recognition of the natural right of thinking possessed by every man, must obviously depend on the circumstances in which such states are placed; and it is by these circumstances, not by any abstract principles, and general reasoning about what is called "freedom of thought, and freedom of discussion," that the policy or impolicy of their acts is to be judged.

When Englishmen first settled on the shores of India, they found go

vernments existing, and which had existed for many centuries, purely despotic. When the sovereignty of the country came in process of time into their own hands, it was neither asserted nor contemplated, that this distinguished feature had been erased. The first acts of their power were exerted, as regardless of scrutiny, through a public press in India, as had been the acts of Acber and Aurengzebe: and it was not until a very late period in our history, as the Governors of India, that any one was found claiming, through an Indian press, a controul over Indian rulers. The exercise of this right began to be attempted within these fifty years, and was first claimed by men, both ignorant of the nature of our Eastern authority, and dissatisfied from personal disappointment with its acts. As the claim was necessarily confined to a very few, it was obvious, that the evils, which it was no less clear would result from its exercise, would be most effectually met, by a previous censorship on the public press: and such a censorship was imposed by Lord Wellesley. As the number of Europeans increased in India, and the press became more generally resorted to, as the medium of making known men's thoughts on every variety of subject, it was to be expected, that complaints against the censorship would be frequently brought; and those, who are acquainted with its history, between the days of Lord Wellesley and Lord Hastings, can bear testimony to the fact, that such complaints were daily carried up to Government, against the mode in which their secretaries exercised their censorial powers. It may well be believed, that these complaints were often very frivolous and unfounded; and it will not be denied, that they sometimes rested on good and valid grounds.

We cannot, however, suppose, that it was either the frequency, or the fairness of these complaints, that led the Government, in 1818, to remove

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