amroyna. 
67 
two years in Aniboyna, trading with the Dutch. During this time, 
tiowever, several disputes happened, which occasioning much dis- 
content, the complaints were sent to Jacatra, in the island of Java 
Major, to the council of deference of both nations then residing : 
but they not agreeing, a state of the matter was sent over to Europe, 
to be decided by the East India companies of both nations ; or, in 
case they should not agree, by the king of England and the States of 
of Holland, according to an article in the the treaty of 1619. — But 
before these disputes could be decided in a legal way, the Dutch, 
in order to give the more specious colouring to the violent seizure 
which they meditated of the island of Amboyna, made use of the 
pretext of a conspiracy being formed by the English and Japanese, to 
dispossess them of one of their forts in this place. The plot, it was 
alleged, had been confessed by a Japanese and Portuguese in the 
English service, who were most inhumanly tortured till they should 
answer in the affirmative such interrogatories as might favour the 
secret designs of these cruel inc^uisitors. Upon the injurious evi- 
dence of this constrained declaration, they immediately accused the 
English factors of the pretended conspiracy. Some of them they 
imprisoned, and others they loaded with irons, and sent on board their 
ships ; seizing at the same time all the English merchandise, with 
their writings. 
These acts of violence were followed by a scene of horror unex- 
ampled in the punishment of the most atrocious offenders. Some 
of the factors they tortured by compelling them to swallow water 
till their bodies were distended to the utmost pitch ; then taking the 
miserable victims down from the boards to which they had been 
fastened, and causing them to disgorge the water : if they did not 
"acknowledge the imputed guilt, the process of torture was repeated. 
Others of the English they tormented by burning them gradually 
from the feet upwards, in order to extort the confession of a con- 
spiracy, which was only pretended by the infernal policy of those 
savage tormentors. Some had the nails of the fingers and toes torn 
off; and in some they made holes in their breasts, filling the cavi- 
ties with infiammable materials, to which they afterwards set fire. 
Those who did not expire under the agonies of torture were con- 
signed to the hands of the executioner. 
The allegation of this pretended conspiracy was equally void of 
probability and truth. The Dutch had a garrison of three hundred 
men in the fort, besides the burghers in the town, and several other 
forts and garrisons in the island, while the English did not amount 
to twenty men ; nor were even those provided with arms or amn)uni- 
tion, to effect such a design as that with which they were charged. 
There likewise was not one English vessel in the harbour, whereas 
the Dutch had eight ships .riding near the town ; neither, when the 
Dutch broke open the desks or trunks of the factors, was there 
found a single paper or letter which could be construed into a con- 
spiracy. Add to all this, that such of the unhappy sufferers as could 
speak or be heard, declared, in the most solemn manner, their inno- 
cence of the plot Muth which they were charged. The whole of the 
transaction affords the most irrefragable testimony that it was 
