In return for these concessions, it would appear, that the company, after having pacified their subjects, seized their lands, and in this manner they continued to practise the same oppression as before, though the mode of it was somewhat different. The plant ers in general, if they had been once freed from the enormous debt claimed by government, would, from the produce of their plantations, have speedily dis charged all other claims, and they considered it hard, therefore, that, under colour of remitting this debt, they should be deprived of their respective proper ties, to which prescription gave them an undoubted right.
The nutmeg-tree is a native of several of the Islands to the eastward ; but it has been in a great measure extirpated from them all except Banda. 'It begins to bear fruit at ten years growth, the fruit im proving in quality, and increasing in quantity, until the tree has attained the age of an hundred years. In its appearance it is handsome and spreading, the bark is smooth and of a brownish grey colour. The leaves resemble those of the laurel, and afford, when bruised, a grateful aromatic scent. When the tree first begins to produce fruit, little yellowish buds make their ap pearance, out of which small white flowers are blown, two or three hanging upon slender peduncles. In the centre of the flower is an oblong reddish knob, from which the fruit is produced, though no mote than one blossom out of three commonly ripens to a nutmeg. It is eight or nine months before the fruit arrives at maturity ; but blossoms and ripe fruit are found together on the same tree, and the nut megs are generally gathered three times in a year. The nutmeg, when ripe on the tree, has both a very curious and beautiful appearance. It is almost the size of an apricot, and nearly of the same colour, with the same kind pf hollow mark all round it. In shape it is somewhat like a pear. When perfectly ripe, the rind over the mark, which is nearly half an inch thick, and of a whitish colour, opens, and dis plays the nutmeg in its black and shining shell, en circled by a net-work of scarlet mace. The shell in which the nutmeg is ,inclosed is about as thick as that of a filbert, and very hard. In preparing the fruit for use, the mace is first strips off and kept in baskets to dry in the sun, and the nutmeg in its shell is placed before a slow fire to dry in five different houses made of split bamboos, fitted up for the pur pose. In each of these houses it remains a week,
till it is heard to shake within the shell, which is then easily broken. The nutmegs thus prepared are sore ed into separate parcels. Each sort is put up by it self into baskets, and soaked three times in of sea water and lime ; after which they are put into distinct closets, where they are Ieft for six weeks to sweat, that the lime, by closing the pores of the nut meg, may prevent its strength from evaporating. The lime is necessary to preserve the fruit from worms and other insects, and it requires much experience, as well as a considerable degree of judgment, to as certain the precise time that the fruit should be suffer. ed to remain in the lime ; for, if it be taken out too soon, it is worm-eaten, and if it is left to remain too long in the lime, it is burnt up and rendered useless.
The nutmeg is distinguished into three . sorts, namely, the male or barren nutmeg, the royal nut meg, and the queen 'nutmeg. The two last species arellistinguished by the different sorts of fruit whisk they produce, that of the royal nutmeg being thick , er, longer, and more pointed. The green shell is also thicker. It does not ripen so fast ; and after opening, it preserves its freshness eight or nine days. The mace is more substantial, and three times as long as that of the queen nutmeg, and its stripes or thongs, of which there are from 15 to 17 principal ones, are of a livelier red ; they are also broader, longer, and thicker, and not only embrace the nut through its whole length, but pass it, and cross under it as if to prevent it from falling. The royal nutmeg is generally from 15 to 17 lines long, and thick in proportion. It remains on the tree a long time after the opening of the green shell, and gives birth to an insect in the shell, which feeds upon it, and destroys it. The queen nutmeg produces much smaller nuts, only nine or ten lines long, not so. thick by a third, and well marked by a longitudinal groove on one side. They are round, and the green shell is not so thick. The mace, which is composed of nine or ten principal stripes, grows only half down the nut, thus leaving it at liberty to detach itself, and to escape from the insect formed in the shell. In two or three days, also the green shell, losing its freshness, soon falls away from the nut.