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. A just retribution for submitting to, or seconding rather, the revolutionary phrenzy of French democracy; for which they now deservedly suffer, under the iron sceptre of the modern Atilla.

[Footnote 315: Purch. Pilgr. II. 1853. Harris, I. 877.]

In giving a short narrative of this infamous transaction, besides the original account of Purchas, abridged from a more extended relation published at the time by the East India Company, advantage has been taken of the account given by Harris of the same event, which is fuller and better connected than that of Purchas, who most negligently garbled this story, under pretence of abbreviation. Harris appears evidently to have used the authorised narrative published by the Company, in drawing up his account of the event.

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