tants of the Molluccas were scarcely acquainted with its 
value, till some Chinese vessels visited their country, and 
transported many plants into China, and that they were 
thus the means of distributing them into other districts of 
India, into Persia, and Arabia. Sir James Smrra (in Rexs’s 
Cyclopedia) suspects, that it was brought into Greece from 
Arabia, and that the first distinct mention of it is made by 
Pautus Qernera, a Greek physician of the seventh century, 
when it was used in food and in medicine ; and the same 
author supposes it was the Carunrex of Seraprron, and the 
CuarumFe bellum of Avicenna, two Arabian physicians. 
The Molucca Isles were discovered by the Portuguese in 
1511; and from that time, or very soon after, it may be 
imagined, the Cloves came into common use in Europe. 
But the Dutch, after driving the Portuguese from the Spice 
Islands, strove to take the monopoly of all the spices 
into their own hands; and, for this purpose, after vainly 
endeavouring to destroy the Cloves in the neighbouring 
islands, they concentrated their cultivation in Amboyna 
and a few smaller islands in the vicinity, where, indeed, 
they had been introduced, even before the conquest of the 
Portuguese, by the Cerammers of Cambello, who brought 
some mother-cloves (seed) secretly in hollow bamboos— 
Machian. The conduct of the Dutch, in all that con- 
; their trade in the East Indies, has fixed an sr gm ; 
disgrace u eir country. When the natives of Cam- 
bello shewed their corner one the Dutch, the trees of 
Cloves they had cultivated secretly for so many years, 
behind the hill of Massili, they were rewarded for their 
openness by the destruction of all their Clove trees, and the 
deprivation of the fruits of their industry and exertion. And 
when the natives came to make reprisals, by attacking 
the forts of the Dutch, such enmity, on their part, is called 
by their European tyrants, a wicked spirit of disobedience, 
and an unjust and cruel lust of blood and warfare : so that 
their great historian Vatentvn has said, “ it would have been 
better, if, instead of extirpating their trees alone, we had, at 
e same time, exterminated this revengeful and sanguinary 
nation*.’’ 5 
A military Officer, a civil servant belonging to the Dutch, 
with European attendants, and twenty or thirty Buggness 
soldiers, 
* See Sravorrnvs’s Travels for a most valuable account of the Dutch 
trade and possessions in the East Indies. 
B 
