Governour and Council of Palliacatt To the English Governour and Council of Fort St. George bearing Date the â—…th of August 1686. To the Honourable William Gyfford President Governour of the Honourable English East-India-Company Residing in the Castle of St. George at Madrasse as also the Council Honourable Sir and good Friends IT cannot be unknown to your Honours how our Honourable Netherlands East-India-Company for some years on this Coast of Choromandel by the great Ministers of State and other lesser Governours and Servants of the Gulcondah Crown Bearer as well in the Low Lands of the North from Orixa to Metchlepatam as also in the Lands of Carnatica are Abused and Affronted in many unspeakable manners which we principally regard the often unjust besieging the City of Pollicatt by the Seeur Lascar Lingapah the stopping of the Cloth Trade in Carnatica the shameful Robberies committed at Sadrassapatam in the said Kings Territories also in Pondeand and Barwa in the Dominion of Orixa and especially a year last past the greatest Force on the Companies onely great Merchant Sermin Codenda committed by Pandiet Akkana who hath unjustly seized the said Merchant and put him in prison Whereupon our President with the aforesaid Akkana as also the great Pandiet Madana his Brother have used all means even with Protest to get the said Merchants out of their hands because the said Merchants are indebted to the Company above One Hundred Sixty Eight Thousand Pagodaes which was not only insignificant but also of so little consideration that the said Pandiet Akkana thereupon in the sight of the King hath forbidden the whole Trade of the Companies Northern Factories with charges to his under Governours to deprive the Honourable Companies Servants in all places and all Factories of any manner of Livelyhood and that all Weavers and other Workmen should be commanded not to deliver what they had in their hands of our Merchants All which proceedings with other of less import as the stopping the Baligatts by the lesser Governour to force the Honourable Companies presents from them as also their threatnings on several occasions which because we would not be too tedious we will pass by All which is unsufferable and against the Law of Nations and the Honourable Companies dear bought and against the Kings own Phirmaunds by which the Honourable Company besides the aforesaid Robberies Force and Affronts have suffered by the aforesaid Merchants Chodenda who is Bankrupt the loss of One Hundred Fifty Nine Thousand Pagodaes not reckoning the dammage in the stopping of Trade whereupon the Right Honourable Governour General and the Honourable Council of India cannot swallow such unreasonable overgrown injuries and have been forced to resolve the better to come by our right in recompence of our great loss for the injuries and affronts done us to take in possession by the forces now sent us the City Metchlepatam and by this means to bring the King and his Counsellors the sooner to make due satisfaction But before this undertaking the High Honourable the honourable Governour General and the Honourable Council of India have sent their chosen Governour and Honourable Commissioner Lawrence Pitts to the King of Gulcondah to make known in all Friendship the Companies just demands who notwithstanding all Remonstrances and endeavours could get no satisfaction but after the loss of much time hath been forced to go away without effecting any thing Which resolution aforesaid of the High Honourable to take in possession the City of Metchlapatam is put in execution and by Gods blessing and the Companies Arms so effected that we now for our Company this 26th of July are Masters of the aforesaid City of Metchlepatam wherein according to our Orders and to the maintaining our Friendships we shall not incommode or hinder your Honours to imbarque in your Ship from your Factory at Metchlepatam what goods you have ready by you as you have occasion and to disimbarque all your Provisions and Merchandize which are brought by your Ships to Metchlepatam and lay them up in your Factory but not to carry them without the City to dispose of them to any Merchants or Subjects of the King of Gulcondah so long as our Company hath not satisfaction from the King and keep possession of the Town which is done the sooner to bring the King to due Complyance as we have said more at large and therefore 't is thought convenient by the High Honourable the Honourable Governour General and Council of India that your Honours may suffer no dammage by these proceedings that what goods you have bargained for and are yet in the Countrey should be brought to your Factory at Metchlepatam within Six or at the utmost Eight Weeks from the time of our taking possession of the Town In which time what your Honours have to be brought in it is convenient to acquaint us with that we may give Orders accordingly The Bearer hereof is the Keeper of our Chamber from whom be pleased to receive it taking notice that 't is for the interest of you Honourable Company and is represented with all Friendship from them who after Friendly Salutations remain Your Honours Ready Friends and Servants John Pitts Joannes Huysman Rehnier Jacobson Tall â—… August 1686. The English Governour and Council at Fort St. George Their answer to the foregoing Letter To the Honourable Jacob Jorreson Pitts Commissary and Governour of Palliacat c. Council for the Affairs of the Right Honourable Netherlands East-India Company Honourable Sirs c. WE have Received a large Declaration from your Honours Dated the 3 / 13th of August 1686. of the State and pretended grounds of the quarrel between His Majesty the King of Gulcondah and the Right Honourable Netherlands East-India-Company and you have also acquainted us that you have taken into your possession his Port of Metchlepatam And because we are strangers to the particular Causes of this Warr we can say nothing to it but must in part believe your Honours report yet we are not ignorant of your farther design therein and we wish it may not be one of your designs to overthrow our Right Honoura-Companies Trade there as hath been practised already too much particularly at Bantam and since at Sumatra for which you are still accomptable for we have ever observed that in all your Contracts with the Kings and Princes of these Countries after a forced Compliance you endeavour to exclude us Trade in their Ports which general design your Honours may be well assured is now discovered and much resented in Europe and thanks be to God we have a King that will not put up such dishonours and injuries to our Nation and we must tell you that 't is too great for you to appoint us what we have to do inreference to our Trade at Metchlepatam though you have possession thereof and to restrain us therein for we know of no obligation to observe such directions the house and ground of our Factory being our Right Honourable
after some expostulation with them their Lordships required them to re-consider of their former answer which they did very seriously and with a faithful regard to their bounden duty to His Majesty and the trust reposed in them by the Adventurers made the following address To the Right Honourable the Lord High Chancellor of England The Lord High Treasurer of England the Earl of Sunderland and the Earl of Middleton Lords Commissioners appointed by the Kings Most Excellent Majesty for determining the differences between the English and Dutch East-India-Companies according to the Treaty of 1674-75 May it please Your Lordships IN Obedience to your Lordships Commands on Wednesday last We have seriously re-considered our last Paper presented to your Lordships and humbly craving your Lordships pardon for any Error or Offence in the words thereof we think we should fail of our Duty to His Majesty and your Lordships if we should not adhere to the substance of that Paper it being our unfeigned and unanimous opinion that it is more for the Honour and Interest of His Majesty and of His Kingdoms in general That the Treaty of 1674-75 should remain as it is than that any new agreement should be made concerning Bantam except the Fort there be delivered undermolished in part of the Companies great dammages And although in our former Papers presented to your Lordships for the Dutch Deputies view We have given reasons to justifie our demands of the Fort undemolished which we did not at first ask by Sir John Chardin which reasons we humbly conceive the Dutch East-India-Company have not nor can sufficiently answer But now since this Paper is to be seen only by your Lordships and not by the Dutch Commissioners We hope we shall clearly demonstrate to your Lordships that what we first demanded from the Dutch by Sir John Chardin was though not the same in words yet in Reality Effect and Consequence as much or more than we now demand of them For at that time we had a strong Fleet of Three and Twenty Ships with Souldiers in board ready to Sail for Bantam the Old King of Bantam our Friend was then at or near Bantam in the head of a great Army and he had given that City and Countrey to His late Majesty Under which Circumstances at that time if the Dutch had delivered effectual Orders to withdraw their Forces from Bantam we should with that Fleet and that Alliance have been in the possession of the Fort of Bantam immediately on our first arrival there and in a better posture than we can now be with the Fort restored to us undemolished because now the Old King is a Prisoner in the hands of the Dutch and his Army all overcome and dispersed All which is Humbly submitted to your Lordships Signed by Order of the Court of Committees of the East-India Company Rob. Blackborne Secr. East-India-House 2d of Jan. 1685. The foregoing Original papers exhibited to the Lords Commissioners Decisors by the Commissioners Instructors for both Companies we think may give sufficient satisfaction to any indifferent persons not onely of the state of the Controversie but a full justification of the English East-India-Companies Right to have Bantam so restored that they may hope to live there without having their Throats cut or being Stabbed as the English Agent formerly was or without being obnoxious to the having all taken from them in a moment at the pleasure of the Batavians Now because all Sumatra abounds with Pepper they pretend a Right to the whole Territory of that Island which is computed bigger than England full of Inhabitants whereon as they confess are many distinct Kingdoms which are governed by antient Soveraign Hereditary Princes And we dare presume to say They have not Two Hundred Dutch men upon the whole Island and we believe not Ten Dutch Women having no place that we know upon that whole Island able to resist Twenty Europeans but Padang and Pollocinco and their Forts upon them are very inconsiderable neither of them having a Garrison of above Fifty or Sixty Europeans and about the like number of black Fellows which are of no value To Bencoolen they do not now nor ever did pretend but say it belongs or owes subjection to the Young King of Bantam Which if it be true we have rightfully taken possession of it That King being our declared Enemy but we shall say more of that hereafter To Atcheen Pryaman Teco and Indrapoora they did formerly pretend and they may as the Reader will see hereafter with as much reason pretend to all India and so questionless they will in a little time if the Kings of Europe and their respective priviledged Companies will give them leave first to take the principal places and then be content to accept of a little Money for them not the Hundredth part of the true value of them But they must first dispatch this business of Pepper and make that Commodity entirely their own as they have all other Spices already and then they need neither pay nor thank any King or their priviledged Companies of Europe for letting them take all the rest because the profit of that single Commodity if it were in one hand would defray the charge of a power sufficient to defend all the Coasts of India from any new-comers and to enslave the Sea Coasts of all those great Monarchs of the East who though they have great Forces by Land have no Naval power and very little skill in taking of Fortresses being not accustomed to the use of Fire-Arms ☜ We know the World better than to expect a Confession of guilt from States-Men and we know how to distinguish between the Dutch Nation and the Dutch East-India-Company the former may be as in-offensive and Just as any other Nation but the latter doubtless have always been a most injurious people for which difference the famous John De Wit assayes to give a reason in a certain Treatise he hath set forth But our end being not to cavil or contend for mastery in words much less to promote War or dissension with which they unjustly charge the English East-India-Company We shall satisfie our selves if we can obtain a Witness or Justification in the hearts and minds of the good and peaceable men of both Nations for which purpose if any of the States or other of the Dutch Nation dis-interested in these debates doubt the truth of the English Companies Allegations we will ask no more but that to satisfie themselves throughly they would privately discourse some of the Dutch themselves that were at Bantam or Batavia Anno 1682. when Bantam was surprized or at any time since Secondly We would pray them likewise to read their own Histories and observe therein whether most of the wrongs complained of by the English in all ages were not perpetrated by the Dutch Company in time of full Peace viz. The falling upon the English and beating them out of the Trade of Japan The taking from them Lantore
well known methods of managing their Affairs in India If likewise the said Gentlemen after so full an answer as we gave though brief and pertinent to their voluminous papers do yet tell Your Lordships we have said nothing to several weighty points as they do in a late paper presented Your Lordships We hope we shall obtain your Lordships pardon for this Rejoynder which shall be as short as the nature of their paper and of their practices in India will admit First As to the Restitution of Bantam we say All the late King of glorious Memory demanded was the withdrawing of the Dutch Forces from Bantam and satisfaction for our dammages and we ask no more now But that the Fort built with the English Money may be left undemolished that we may be able to defend our Factors and Servants and preserve the Trade we design there which as the present Affairs of Bantam are can be no otherwise secured to us And it is certain that the Lords States General consented to the withdrawing their Forces as aforesaid by their answer to Sir John Chardins Memorial Whether we speak truly in this or not we are in Your Lordships Judgment upon view of the authentick Copies of the said Memorial and Reply lodged with Sir John Chardin and with your Lordships Secretary And for the Gentlemen to say the Lords States Concessions then to Sir John Chardin are not to be urged now because they have since made Articles with that poor Young King which the Batavians have so much abused and enslaved and who is so ignorant and so miserable that he would set his Chop or Mark to a Hundred blanks if they would have him And we appeal not only to your Lordships Wisdom but to all Men of common sense whether any thing since done with such a poor Creature now and then in durance can make any new Case since the transactions at the Hague Secondly The Gentlemen say they affirmed we had only a Factory and a Residence in the Capital City of Bantam and can found no dominion upon that and that we have replyed nothing thereunto wherein we humbly conceive your Lordships will find the Gentlemen under a great mistake For though our Factory and the Fort Built with our Money were more worth than all the rest of the Buildings in Bantam which they call the Capital City We claim no Territory by vertue thereof but we say the Old King of Bantam was King of Right and his Son only Probationary with his Fathers leave to see how he would behave himself and as such a King and the Son of a Father alwayes Obsequious to His late Majesty of Glorious Memory His Embassadours were here received with Respect And that the Old King his Father before the Articles the Dutch Gentlemen pretend to have made with his Son gave that City and Territory to His said late Majesty And if the Dutch Deputies will yet contend That the Young King was King not only Probationary but de jure and that the Father was subject to the Son which was not so of Right by the Laws of that Country nor can ever be proved but the contrary most certainly if it were worth the contesting Then we say that Young King hath violated his publick Faith by his Assassinating our Agent and other publick Persons Resident as Chiefs of the English Nation by Commission from His late Majesty of Glorious Memory And if it be true as the Dutch Deputies themselves have constantly affirmed That it was not the Batavians but that Young King of Bantam that rifled our Houses tore our King's Colours drove us from our Ancient Great and Costly Habitations and Trade while at the same time his own Embassadors were treated here by His Majesty and His Majesties East-India Company with the greatest Kindness and Respect If this be the Case do not the Dutch Deputies themselves in Effect confess That that Young King deserves no longer to be corresponded with by them And that it is most reasonable for us that are and desire to be their Friends to request them to depart thence and leave us the Fort which our Money paid for which is all we ask of them with respect to the pretended Restitution of that place and we may say to the Restitution of the Majesty and Honour of our English Name and Nation which hath been intolerably affronted and abused at that place of Bantam in sight of many Eastern Nations 3. As to that weak Question cui bono we cannot but wonder the Gentlemen should expose themselves again to the censure not only of your Lordships but of all Mankind that have the least knowledge of India They argue thus They had favour at Bantam a Factory there their Friend King why should they adventure a War if compassion to their Ally had not moved them when they could not better their Condition Our Answer was full to this before but in regard the Gentlemen will have more of it Your Lordships we hope will pardon our telling them that their Factory at Bantam was used mostly for buying Rice Hens and Provisions and it may be to inspect the English Proceedings for where the English are Trade runs generally at so low profit that the Dutch care not for medling with it in such places But if by the Artifices they have used they can keep the English French Danes Portugueez Moores Gentues and Mallayes and all other Nations from bringing Callicoes to Bantam which Callicoes are the principal Clothing of the Javans and many Nations thereabout to the Eastward they may then sell one piece of Callico for the price that two would sell for when the Trade of Bantam was open and buy two Baharrs of Pepper for the price they paid for one formerly which may alter the Dutch Companies Affairs for the better Two or Three Hundred Thousand Pounds per annum besides the much greater Advantage they would make by having the whole Trade of Pepper in Europe if they can keep Bantam as now it is by any means right or wrong Besides the design which it is manifest they have in prospect of obstructing all other Europeans from the China and Japan Trade having by preventing all Nations from the Trade of Bantam secured as they think the two great Passages viz. the Streights of Sunda and the Streights of Malacca If this be not a full Answer to their cui bono let the World judge as we doubt not but your Lordships will uprightly although the Gentlemen with as little reason as they did before should call the most clear Truth and undenyable Arguments by the same insignificant Term Gallimatias The next Question they discourse of viz. How it can be imagined that the Young King should be so simple c. We dare not say any more to it now lest your Lordships should apprehend it to be an abuse of your Lordships Patience after we have so fully and clearly answered that before We must own our selves obliged to the Gentlemen for
or Cassia Lignum that after such time as we have bought and paid for Ditto goods that we shall not bring them away Now it is most certain they will not stick to do it by what they have done this year for at a place called Chittoa which is about Twelve Leagues to the Southward of Callicut we had bought One hundred Tons of Pepper besides a considerable quantity of Cassia Lignum on the Honourable Companies Account And by reason the Samorine was not willing we should carry one of our Ships to the fore-mentioned place to take in Ditto Goods we sent down several small Vessels to Chittoa to bring the goods from thence Now the first small Vessel which was sent on Ditto Account belonged to one Mr. Cracroft and my self Now after such time as they had Laden on board her what Pepper and Cassia Lignum she could conveniently carry of the Honourable Companies after they had weighed Anchor and were coming out of Chittoa River there lying three Dutch Vessels at the Rivers mouth they hal'd her and asked who she belong'd to Mr. Cracroft one of the Honourable Companies Factors being in the Vessel made answer and told them she belonged to the English and that she was laden with the Honourable Companies goods the Dutch made answer and told Mr. Cracroft that they had an Order from the governour of Cochin not to let any Vessel pass that was loaden with Pepper and Cassia Lignum and if they offered to come out of the River that they would take her With this the Dutch having three Vessels to their one they were forced to put into the River again and unlade her though according to the Articles of Peace they ought not to molest nor hinder the Honourable Company in their Trading here in India yet for all this provided they can advance their own interest they neither value the breaking of the peace nor what dammage they do to the Honourable Company There was after this another small Vessel which was laden from the afore-mentioned Port of Chittoa with Pepper and Cassia Lignum of the Honourable Companies and after such time as they had brought her out of the River the Dutch who lay with their three Vessels some small distance from the Rivers mouth fired near two hundred Guns and Muskets at her it being a wonder that they did not sink her which if they had would have been a considerable loss to the Honourable Company After this manner do the Dutch abuse and affront the Honourable Company which if they do not seek some remedy to prevent their base and Traiterous designs the Dutch will serve them such a trick as they did at Bantam and by degrees root them totally from that little footing they have on this Coast and then they have accomplished their designs They are going to make War with the King of this Countrey for which reason by relation they have sent for more men from Batavia and all is because he suffers the English to buy Pepper in his Countrey The Dutch are also resolved if not by fair means then by force to build a Factory in Chittoa which if they effect the Honourable Company may in a manner bid a farewell to their Pepper and Cassia Lignum Trade on the Mallabar Coast it being the chief place we have to the Southward of Callicut to buy Pepper at which if once lost shall not be able to procure any quantity of Pepper or Cassia Lignum on this Coast The Dutch are resolved to have a Factory here in Callicut which if they effect there is no doubt but they will one way or other worm the English out hence also there being no trust to be put in these Mallabar Princes unless the Honourable Company had some kind of force in these parts that they might stand somewhat in awe of us as they do of the Dutch. It was our hopes that we who are the Honourable Companies Servants on this Coast did run the hazard of our Lives by Sea only by running amongst these Mallabar Pirats when we are forced to Sail in small Vessels from place to place on our Honourable Masters business But now the Dutch are grown so insolent that we are in a manner in as great if not greater danger of our lives when we meet with the Dutch at Sea which in a manner are rather worse then Pirats to us because we have peace with them than these Mallabar Pyrates are as plainly appears by a passage which happened some few dayes past For one of the Honourable Companies Factors was sent down to the above-mentioned place Chittoa for to bring up the Honourable Companies Pepper and Cassia Lignum from whence he was bringing four small Vessels laden with ditto goods Now who should encounter him but one of the Dutch Vessels He being the first of the four which came up with him So the Dutch seeing it was an English man and knowing him to be one of the Honourable Companies Servants yet for all this called to him and bid him come on board but he not giving ear to what they said because he had the Honourable Companies goods aboard and did not know but they would have stopt him had he adher'd to them therefore he made the best of his way The Dutch seeing that fired at least Thirty Musquets at him and had certainly killed him had he not clapt himself down betwixt some of the Bales of Pepper having no Arms to resist them Thus under the pretence of Peace not onely the Companies Servants who live in these parts but the Honourable Company themselves are greatly abused and affronted in being impeded by the perfidious dealings of the Dutch contrary to the Articles of Peace made betwixt His Majesty and them It being specified in the said Articles that the Honourable Company may Trade in any place whatsoever here in the East-Indies without being molested Signed Daniel Ackworth Dated at Tellecherry the 9th of Decemb. 1683. Note That these Hostilities are still continued by the Dutch on the Mallabar Coast and all since the surprize of Bantam and by our last Letters from India we have advice they are at other places upon the same Coast in constant pursuit of the great design of ingrossing the Pepper Trade by the same means Of the truth whereof we could produce many more manifest Evidences but that they would swell this Reply unto too great a Volume Upon the Coast of Choromandel the English Company have a Sovereign Regency under His Majesty over a great City and a strong Fort and Garrison with above Two Hundred Guns mounted Notwithstanding which as soon as the Dutch Company had taken Metchlepatam an open Town upon the same Coast they did immediately with insufferable insolence forbid the English the Trade of that place on purpose to lay the English low in the Eyes of the Natives according to their usual Treatment The particulars of this appears by the following Transcripts from the Originals Viz. A Letter sent by the Dutch