218 THE DISCOVERY OF AUSTRALIA 



and robbing all nations in the name and under the colour 

 of the English." Such, at least, were the English stories, 

 and words grew bitter. Sir Thomas Dale, infamous for 

 methods of barbarism in Virginia, receiving a document 

 in Flemish, " scolded, stamped, swore and cursed," and 

 asked " why the letter was not written in French, Spanish, 

 Latin, or any other language, if we did not like to write 

 English." * 

 The In 1623 Governor-General Coen sailed for Holland, leaving 



massacre of instructions to " treat the English no more than a public 



Amboyna, 



1623. enemy ought to be treated ; not weighing too scrupulously 



what may fall out." Governor Speult of Amboyna, 

 who had been accused of some slackness of duty, acted 

 on the hint. He manufactured evidence of English 

 conspiracy out of the confessions of a tortured Japanese. 

 The accused English were tormented with long-drawn 

 atrocity, and ten of them were executed. Some of them 

 managed to write on pages of their prayer-books, or other 

 scraps of paper, notes like the following : " We through 

 torment were constrained to speak that which we never 

 meant, nor man imagined. They tortured with that 

 extreme torment of fire and water that flesh and blood 

 could not endure. Written in the dark." 



English The English people did not love the English Company, 



Dutch ' * 6 b ut t ^ ie crue l an d insolent outrage burnt hot and deep. 

 The Company talked of " joining with the Portugals, 

 and rooting the bloody Dutch out of the Indies." James I. 

 threatened war, but did nothing. Charles even seized 

 Dutch ships, but was satisfied by payment of 30,000 

 into his personal pocket. At length Cromwell, determined 

 to make the name of Englishman as respected through 

 the world as had been the name of Civis Romanus, insisted 

 that the Dutch must pay compensation to the Company 

 for the old iniquity. But it remained unforgiven. ' The 

 spectres of the tortured victims," writes Sir William 

 Hunter, " stood between the two great Protestant Powers 

 during a century." 



1 This discussion is mainly based on Sir W. Hunter's History of British 

 India. 



