1609-18]

Operations in the Banda Islands

735

between the English and Dutch in the East was inevitable, none the less to those who inherited the Elizabethan tradition must it have seemed that, in Gelon's words, ἐκ τοῦ ἐνιαυτοῦ τὸ ἔαρ ἐξαραίρηται. The struggle indeed partook of the character of a civil war. Thus Dale was

still in the employ of the States General when he accepted (1618) the command of the expedition mentioned below, which was directed against the Dutch in the East. (He left the Netherlands on the very day that he received £1000 for the time of his seven years' absence in Virginia.)

The tiny Banda Islands were the scene upon which the struggle began. Successive English commanders had obtained cargoes in the Spice Islands, though with increasing difficulty. Their position, however, was a difficult one in the face of Dutch rivalry. A feeble attempt to establish a footing in the Banda Islands was met by the erection by the Dutch of Fort Nassau on Banda Neira (1609). After this Amboina and the Moluccas had fallen a prey to the Dutch, through native hatred of the Portuguese; but little was gained by the change of masters, and the Bandanese had every reason to maintain their cherished independence. Meanwhile the financial position of both Companies was making for conflict. The huge expenses entailed by forts and military preparations were compelling the Dutch to enforce a monopoly of the trade in spices, while the glut of pepper in the English market was emphasising the necessity of new commodities. In 1613 attempts were made to establish factories at Amboina and at Lochoe and Kambeloe in Ceram; but Dutch influence prevailed to bar their establishment. Better things might be expected from the Banda Islands, when the natives were at open war with the Dutch and were anxious "to live and die with the English." In 1615 Ball attempted unsuccessfully to start a factory on Great Banda Island. The interview between Ball and Reynst, the Dutch Governor-General, gives a vivid picture of the international situation. "He, then, standing up, fluttering his papers at my face, saying we were rogues and vassals, not having anything but from Thomas Smith of London,. . . saying that our King's Majesty had... replied that they had all the right that might be and no others to these places in Banda, Sir T. Smith then in presence silenced." In truth the proverb was applicable, qui veut le fin, veut les moyens. The English had the choice either to fight for the trade or else to retire with dignity. Unfortunately they did not recognise this. When the inhabitants of Pulo Ai offered a monopoly of their spice trade, in return for an offensive and defensive alliance, the merchants at Bantam could only answer, "for help to recover Neira we could not do it without order from England"; and yet an English factory was established on the island. In 1616 a small English fleet under Castleton sailed for the Banda Islands. Arriving at Pulo Ai, they found the Dutch in great force at Neira. The inevitable but inglorious sequel was that the English agreed to remain neutral in the struggle between the Dutch and Bandanese, having been granted leave to remove their goods without molestation in

736

Foundation of Batavia

[1613-9 the event of a Dutch conquest. In the face of this agreement, the acceptance by a subordinate, Hunt, of a grant from the natives of Pulo Ai and Pulo Run seems clearly invalid. In any case force was on the side of the Dutch, and they proceeded to conquer Pulo Ai, erecting afterwards a fort. Pulo Run was still independent, and thither Courthope, an Englishman of stouter stuff, was sent at the close of 1616 to enforce the English claims. The Bandanese chiefs formally recorded their previous surrender of Pulo Ai and Pulo Run to the English, and covenanted not to sell their mace and nutmegs to any but them. A Dutch squadron from Neira was powerless to expel the English intruders, and the fortifying of the small island of Nailaka further strengthened Courthope's position. The want of discipline in the sailors led to the capture of one of Courthope's ships, and this was followed by the loss of the other. Nevertheless, though the Dutch Governor Reael, anxious to avoid the scandal of open war, offered Courthope the return of his vessels, together with compensation and a cargo of spices on his departure, he stoutly refused to budge. He would not "betray the country people who had surrendered up their land to the King's Majesty." The weary months went on but no attempt was made to relieve Courthope. He had only thirty-eight men, who lived chiefly on rice and water. At last, however, the real meaning of the situation had been realised at home, and the dispatch of Dale in 1618, with powers both civil and military, in command of a strong fleet, was an open challenge to the Dutch. A French observer notes that the English and Dutch ships had been only prevented from fighting in the road of Bantam by the threat of the native governor that, should a conflict occur between them, "he would cut the throats of all their men that he should find upon the land." The actual results of Dale's expedition were very small. Indeed, by taking part in the native attack upon the Dutch at Jacatra he indirectly contributed to the rise of the new Dutch capital Batavia, which was erected in 1619 near the old site. The Committee of Seventeen had been for some years urging the foundation of a strong rendezvous. Dale died at sea in 1619; and the intrepid Courthope was killed in a fray with the Dutch in the following year, just before the news arrived of the agreement concluded in London between the two Companies. The Dutch honoured him with a stately funeral. He was assuredly felix opportunitate mortis. The enforced surrender by the natives of Pulo Run to the Dutch while the representative of the soi-disant Sovereign stood idly by, by no means added to English prestige in the Far East.

Welcome as of course would have been a genuine reconciliation of English and Dutch interests in the East, the agreement of 1619 merely hid a sore which continued to fester underneath. Already in 1613 and 1615 negotiations had taken place in London and the Hague. No result had been arrived at, partly because the King was averse from

1617-9] Agreement between the Dutch and the English 737

joining the Dutch in a vigorous war against Spain, and partly because the English Company shrewdly suspected "that the Hollanders had engaged themselves in a labyrinth of business and desire the assistance of the Company to help them out." The cautious Roe advised in 1617 "never to join stock for profit and loss; for their garrisons, charges, losses by negligence will engage you to bear part of their follies." Now, in their anxiety for a share of the spice trade, the English Company proved more amenable; though the wisdom of the step was still questioned, and Chamberlain wrote to Carleton, "say what they can, things have passed as the other would have it, which makes the world suspect that they have found great friends and made use of their wicked mammon.' Among the members of the Company the dissatisfaction was so great that "the factions and dissensions in the Company," as we are told in the following year, had "almost torn it in pieces."

The agreement of June 2, 1619, applied the sponge to the past; and the officers of the two Companies were for the future to act in cordial coöperation. The commerce of the East was declared free to either Company, and excessive duties were to be regulated and lessened. The practice of "liberal gifts "was also to cease. The staple commodities were to be sold at prices fixed by the representatives of the two Companies, and the pepper crop in Java was to be divided in equal shares. The English were to share in the trade of Pulicat, and in return pay half the expense of fortifications. In the Moluccas, Banda Islands, and Amboina the English portion in the trade was limited to one-third; the cost of forts and garrisons was to be defrayed by a duty on exports. For purposes of general defence each Company was to furnish ten ships of war, with such auxiliary vessels as should prove necessary. A council of defence was instituted, consisting of eight members, four from each Company; the president to be chosen from each in monthly rotation. Fortresses were on both sides to remain in the hands of their present possessors. The question of the right of the English to build new forts, where such rights had been disputed by the Dutch, was to remain in suspense for two or three years; but forts taken "by the industry and common forces of both Companies" were to be held in joint possession. Thenceforth neither Company was to exclude the other either by fortifications or by contracts from any part of the Indies. The treaty was to hold good for twenty years, and any dispute that could not be settled either by the Council in India or by the Companies at home was to be referred to the King and the States General.

A most cursory perusal of the treaty serves to show that it was drawn up by men who either did not know or wilfully ignored the actual situation in the East. To talk of a friendly settlement without securing the foundations of such settlement was to waste words. Either the interests of the two Companies should be identical, or they must remain hostile. But, while they remained hostile, something more effective was

C. M. H. IV..

47

738 Attempt to prevent the failure of the agreement [1622-3

required to enforce respect for the treaty than pious good wishes. What has been said of the two countries at a later date was already true. "War à outrance or the closest possible union" was the only solution of the problem. Moreover, the whole treaty was based on a false assumption. It assumed equality between the two Companies. The real state of things was very different. The Dutch Company was a great military organisation, a mighty imperium in imperio, a powerful instrument of the Netherlands in their struggle with Spain. The English Company was a trading venture, with grumbling stockholders, existing at the mercy of a King the main object of whose diplomacy was to preserve peace with Spain. To maintain ships of war, as enjoined by the agreement, was a task beyond the powers of the English Company, and through the sheer weakness of the English the provisions as to equality of position became a dead letter. Moreover, it was well for the so-called allies that the power of Portugal was on the wane; or the joint Dutch and English expedition to Goa and Mozambique in 1622 must have led to disaster. The interchange of courtesies between the Dutch admiral and the English vice-admiral was more suited for Billingsgate than for the fellow officers of friendly Powers. In this state of things the refusal by the English to continue joint expeditions was doubtless wise.

The fault was assuredly not all on one side. "All in all," the Batavian authorities wrote home, "a disagreeable wife is bestowed on us, and we do not know how to keep you out of disputes." The Seventeen were themselves urgent for conciliation. They were conscious of the risk of losing "our small portion of the Netherlands, thinking to make a conquest of the Indian world." They were encumbered with a loan of eight million guilders and their credit could stand no more. They feared that the jealousy of rivals might prevent the renewal of their charter. Nevertheless the arrangement proved unworkable. The English factors preferred "the time of our unfortunate war before a troubled peace. At Batavia and elsewhere the will of the Dutch was law. They carried themselves as in a settled kingdom of their own. Nor were matters mended by the prolonged negotiations which took place in 1622-3 between the Dutch Commissioners and the English authorities. A modus vivendi on paper was arrived at, but Chamberlain rightly opined that the East India Company would be never the better for the new agreement. The real right of the Dutch lay in the enforcement of their might against the Spanish-Portuguese power; and, unless the English were prepared to share the full burden, the Dutch would continue to hold them craven interlopers.

A ghastly commentary on the agreement was afforded by what is known as the "Massacre at Amboina." Amboina, "lying as a queen between the isles of Banda and the Moluccas," had been won from Portugal by Dutch blood and treasure. Under the new arrangement English trading was to be suffered gladly in this sacred spot of Dutch

1624-8]

The "Massacre at Amboina"

739

influence. Brooding in a sultry climate, with causes of friction daily multiplying, the Dutch Governor, van Speult, believed, or feigned to believe, that a conspiracy was on foot to enable the English to surprise the fort. It is impossible to take this pretended conspiracy seriously. The story itself was not consistent, asserting both that opportunity was to be taken of the Governor's absence and that he was to be massacred in the fort. The few English and Japanese in the island were in a hopeless minority. The English resident Gabriel Towerson, an indolent, easy-going merchant, who had tried to mend his fortunes at the cost of the Great Moghul, through the influence of his Armenian wife, was the last man to embark upon a forlorn adventure. Moreover, even the success of such an enterprise must have entailed ruin upon the conspirators, when the news reached England. No evidence was forthcoming to convict the prisoners, except confessions drawn from them under torture; and against these there were writings which solemnly revoked such confessions. Nevertheless, of the eighteen Englishmen arrested, twelve were executed. The proceedings had been irregular; the Governor-General, Carpentier, regretted that "the proper style of justice had not been followed." Before the execution a letter had been received, recalling the English from Amboina; so that van Speult might have obtained a bloodless victory. It seems certain that the Amboina proceedings took strong hold of English popular opinion, and served to render general that deep distrust of the Dutch which had been hitherto mainly confined to the mercantile classes. "Those who wish the Dutch well," wrote Chamberlain, "cannot hear or speak of this insolence without indignation." "The King took it so to heart that he spoke somewhat exuberantly; I could wish that he would say less, so that he would do more." Secretary Conway wrote to Carleton, "there is not an English heart that can be content to give way to the continuance of these scorns, insolences, and barbarisms. . . . God give your States wisdom not to be limed with the interests of the particulars and bewinthebbers (Directors), or I dare prophesy that these twelve months to come will bring their vast enterprises by sea to a short and regular station." The East India Company demanded “a real reparation and an equal separation." The necessities of European politics, however, forbade a conflict with the Dutch. A protest was appended by Charles I to the Treaty of Southampton in 1625, stating that if justice were not done by the States within eighteen months the King would enforce his rights by letters of reprisals, and Carleton continued to press for justice to be done "for the bloody butchery on our subjects." The temporary detention of three ships (1627-8) was the sole attempt made to enforce reparation. Nevertheless Nemesis lay in wait; and, when later the Dutch were confronted with the sterner methods of the Commonwealth and Cromwell, the Amboina proceedings were not forgotten in the day of reckoning.

Lamentable, however, as was the tragedy, its political consequences