Besides These, There Were Upwards Of An Hundred Persons,
So Maimed Or Sick As To Be Incapable Of Being Sent Off At This Time, For
Want Of Room In These Two Ships.
The king of Ormus was very poor, and lived chiefly on a pension or
allowance of 140,000 rees, allowed him by the king of Spain, with some
small reserved petty customs.
In rummaging among his papers, we found
the copy of a letter from him to the king of Spain, complaining loudly
of the injustice of the Portuguese, and charging them with the entire
overthrow of the kingdom of Ormus.[312]
[Footnote 312: Besides this letter, too long and uninteresting for
insertion, there are several other letters and documents in the Pilgrims
at this place, so much in the same predicament as to be here
omitted. - E.]
When we expected to have received 1200 tomans[313] from Pulot Beg, who
was chief commissioner under the Khan of Shiras, as our pay for the time
occupied in this enterprize, he contrived to make us a larger sum in
their debt, under pretence of embezzling the plunder in the castle;
while we, on the other hand, made counter demands of a much larger sum
due to us from the Persians, in the same manner. At length, three months
pay were allowed, and our other demands were shifted off, as he
pretended to have no power to liquidate them without an order from the
Khan. After business was ended, our misery began, occasioned by the
insufferable heat of Ormus, and the disorders of our own people in
drinking arrack, and other excesses no less injurious; through which
such diseases arose among our people, that three-fourths of them were
dangerously sick, and many died so suddenly, that the plague was feared
to have got among them, although no symptoms of that dreadful malady as
yet appeared. This extremity lasted for fourteen days, during which
time, six or seven of our men died every day; but after this, it pleased
God to stay the mortality, and the rest recovered. Ten pieces of
ordnance belonging to the Portuguese, were taken into our ships, to
replace that number of our own which had been broken or otherwise
spoiled during the siege. Our fleet was detained till the 1st September,
owing to the shifting of the monsoon, and waiting its return. Leaving
Ormus on that day, we arrived in Swally roads on the 24th of that month,
where the London, Jonas, and Lion, loaded for England, and sailed
homewards bound on the 30th December. Before setting sail, news was
brought of sinking three Portuguese carracks off the port of
Masulipatam, by the English and Dutch in conjunction.
[Footnote 313: This must be a gross error, as by the value of the toman
formerly given, the sum in the text very little exceeds L400. Purchas
mentions, in a side-note, that he had heard the English received L20,000
for this service from the Persians. - E.]
* * * * *
In the Annals of the East India Company,[314] the English are said on
this occasion to have received a proportion of the plunder acquired at
Ormus, and a grant of the moiety of the customs at Gambroon, which
place, in the sequel, became the principal station of their trade with
Persia and other places in the Persian gulf. The treaty made in 1615 by
Mr Connock was also renewed, and an additional phirmaund granted by the
Sophi, allowing them to purchase whatever quantity of Persian silks they
might think proper, in any part of his dominions, with the privilege of
bringing their goods from Gambroon to Ispahan free of duties.
[Footnote 314: Vol. I. p. 236. The historiographer makes, however, a
small mistake, naming Ruy Frere de Andrada as chief commander of the
Portuguese at Ormus, who only commanded in a subordinate fortress at
Kismis. - E.]
In consequence of the war of Ormus, a claim was set up in 1624 by the
crown and the Duke of Buckingham, as lord high admiral of England, by
which the Company was demanded to pay a proportion of the prize-money,
which their ships were supposed to have obtained in the seas bordering
on the countries within the limits of their exclusive charter. In order
to substantiate these claims, Captains Weddell, Blithe, Clevenger,
Beversham, and other officers of the Company's ships were examined, and
particularly those who had been employed against Ormus. According to
their statements, it appeared that the amount of this prize-money was
calculated at L100,000 and 240,000 rials of eight, but without taking
into view the charges and losses incurred by the Company on this
occasion, and by their ships being called off from commercial
engagements, to act as ships of war for the protection of their trade
against the Portuguese, and in the assistance of the government of
Persia, by which they had been compelled, either to engage in this war,
or to relinquish a trade in which they had expended large sums, together
with the loss of all their goods then in Persia. At last the Company was
obliged to compound, by payment of L10,000 to the Duke of Buckingham in
discharge of his claim, and received an order from the secretary of
state, Sir Edward Conway, to pay a similar sum also to the crown. - E.
SECTION XIV.
ACCOUNT OF THE MASSACRE OF AMBOINA, IN 1623.[315]
In the preceding sections of this chapter, the early commercial voyages
of the English East India Company have been detailed; and it is now
proposed to conclude this part of our arrangement, by a brief narrative
of the unjustifiable conduct of the Dutch at Amboina, in cruelly
torturing and executing several Englishmen and others on false pretences
of a conspiracy, but the real purpose of which was to appropriate to
themselves the entire trade of the spice islands, Amboina, Banda, and
the Moluccas. They effectually succeeded in this nefarious attempt, and
preserved that rich, but ill-got source of wealth, for almost two
hundred years; till recently expelled from thence, and from every other
commercial or colonial possession in Asia, Africa, and America.
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