270 
VOYAGE GF THE POTOMAC. 
[March, 
Previously to this, however, the Enghsh East India Company, 
following the example of the Dutch, fitted out a fleet for the eastj 
the command of which was given to Captain Lancaster, who sailed 
from London in sixteen hundred and one ; first to Acheen, in .Su- 
matra, as stated in a preceding chapter, where he procured part 
of his cargo, and entered into a treaty with the king, of which a 
copy is yet in existence. From Acheen he proceeded to Bantam, 
where he established a factory, which was the first possession of 
the English in the East Indies. Captain Lancaster took home a 
letter from the King of Bantam, addressed to Queen Elizabeth, in 
sixteen hundred and two, which is said to be still on file in the 
English state-paper office, and to which the virgin queen made 
a most gracious reply. 
Another English fleet of four ships, commanded by Captain, 
afterward Sir Henry Middleton, arrived in Bantam Roads near 
the close of December, sixteen hundred and four. Here the ves- 
sels separated, two of them remaining to take in a cargo of pep- 
per, one going to Banda, while Middleton himself proceeded to the 
Spice Islands. He found the Moluccas the seat of a most fero- 
cious war between the Dutch and Portuguese ; the former as- 
sisted by the 'King of Ternate, and the latter by the King of Ti- 
dore. The King of Ternate was prevailed upon by the Dutch 
not to permit any commercial intercourse with the English, whom 
they represented as a mere band of pirates, and boasted that the 
King of Holland v/as more powerful at sea than all Europe be- 
side. Of course Middleton effected no trade at the Moluccas. 
In October, sixteen hundred and twelve. Captain John Saris, 
commanding a fleet in the service of the East India Company, 
arrived at Bantam, which was still considered as the chief Eng- 
lish factory in the east. But as he could not procure cargoes, he 
steered for the Moluccas ; where the dreadful tragedy was soon 
after enacted by the jealous and envious Dutch, celebrated by the 
name of "the Massacre of Amboyna," in which the English Cap- 
tain Towerson and nine others, after being most cruelly tortured, 
were put to death. The news of this ruthless and bloody catas- 
trophe caused great excitement in England, who made reprisals 
they prepared to build a city, and called it Batavia : this story, at least, has the 
recommendatiGn of classical allusion ! 
