In These Vessels Came
The Fiscal And Several Dutch Gentlemen, With Eighty Soldiers, Who
Immediately Took Possession Of Our Bark.
They also went below and sealed
up all our chests, after which the two orambies towed us farther into
the harbour, so that by noon we were up as high as the town of Amboina,
where they moored our bark in the ordinary anchorage.
We continued on board till the 31st, two days, not knowing how they
meant to dispose of us; in which time they would not supply us with any
victuals, though we offered a crown a pound for beef, pork, or bread. In
the evening of this day they took us all on shore, lodging us in two
rooms near the Stadt-house, our bark, with all our money and goods,
being taken from us, except what we happened to have about our persons,
and soon after our vessel and goods were sold by auction. We were fed
with bad meat, which our stomachs could ill digest, being very weak with
having been so long on short allowance, and if we desired to have better
we had to buy it with our own money. Several of us had fortunately some
money about us, and as long as that lasted we purchased provisions from
our keeper. For a Spanish dollar, which was worth five shillings and a
penny, he would only give us five Dutch skellings, or the value of
about two and six-pence; and even for this he gave us no more victuals
than we could have bought for five-pence, if we had been at liberty to
go into the town; so that, instead of five shillings for the Spanish
dollar, we in reality had only five-pence.
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