Selected quad for the lemma: judgement_n
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A46179
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An impartial vindication of the English East-India-Company from the unjust and slanderous imputations cast upon them in a treatise intituled, A justification of the directors of the Netherlands East-India-company, as it was delivered over unto the high and mighty lords the States General of the United Provinces / translated out of Dutch, and feigned to be printed at London, in the year 1687 ; but supposed to be printed at Amsterdam, as well in English as in French and Dutch.
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East India Company.
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1688
(1688)
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Wing I90; ESTC R17309
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120,912
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229
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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
Deputies of the Company of the said Provinces who have the honour to defend before your Excellencies the Right and the Innocency of their Company to spare your Excellencies the trouble of an obscure and perplext discourse will endeavour as much as it is possible for them to unfold the matter and to govern their Defence by the order of nature which enlightens with its clearness the subject proposed to be treated of and deviding for this reason their answer into two principal parts they will consider in the first place the nature of the demand of the English Company in its proper scope and will afterwards examine upon what it is founded As to the first point since the demand ought to be the Basis and foundation of a Judicial Decision the underwritten Deputies could have wished that the Commissioners of the English Company in relation to the point of their Re-establishment in Bantam would have explained with more clearness than they have done in their Memorial which they exhibit instead of a demand for although there be there mentioned the Restitution of Bantam and the delivery of the Fort of the said Town and lastly the recalling of the Dutch forces from Bantam and out of all the Territories which depend upon the said Town and that whole Kingdom almost in the same terms with the Memorial of the said Commissioners of the English Company of the Tenth and of the Seventeenth of June wherein besides the re-calling of the Hollanders Forces they pretend that the Town of Bantam should be restored as they word it into the hands of His Majesty The under-written Deputies could never without difficulty nor can yet believe that the expression concerning the Restitution of Bantam could be expected to be understood literally For since before the last War of Bantam the English Company had in the Capital City but a house and Residence without having had there or pretended to any Right or Territory it 's unconceivable with what appearance of Justice it can pretend to that which it never possest and to what it hath never had any real pretence founded upon propriety Dominion which not only according to the Civil Law but also according to that of Nature ought to be the ground of a real action Rei vindicatio besides that it is not to be comprehended to demand more than it hath lost viz. The City and Fort of Bantam instead of a House which the Company there possest and of which the King of Bantam hath driven the English out of Bantam and from whom doth the English Company demand the City and Fort of Bantam From the Company of Holland which enjoys there only a bare Residence without any Right of Territory or Authority which is intirely inherent in the person of the King. But how should they dispose of the City of Bantam And in what manner shall they put it into the Hands of the English shall they drive away the King of Bantam from it Whom notwithstanding the Honour which the late King of Great Brittain of glorious Memory did him by the Reception of his Ambassadors and the great respects which the English Company shewed to him in the Letter they Writ to him in the Year 1682 They would now make pass for a pitiful fellow and a slave to Batavia But it may be they would have the Dutch Company make the King of Bantam yeild up the said Town to the English But in what manner Probably by threatning the Indian Prince to leave him to the mercy of his Enemies by withdrawing the Dutch. Troops from Bantam But if the government of Batavia be obliged to maintain and protect the King against his Enemies as it is really and effectually engaged to do must they break their word and falsifie their faith to accommodate the English Company in Bantam This would be unjust and by consequence morally impossible as are all things which cannot be compassed with Justice and publick Faith which there is as much obligation to keep with an Indian Prince as there is with the most considerable and most potent King of the whole Earth Against which the politick remark of the Commissioners of the English Company in the 5th Paragraph of their demand signifies nothing where the say That to alledge the obligation of protecting an Allye is but a politick artifice to Banish for ever peace between the English and the Dutch in India because there will be nothing more easie than to make War by these means between any other Princes and their Neighbours or their Sons or Brothers and then take a side and condition with the prevailing side to exclude the English and all other Europeans For although it would be a very base and Criminal action to make quarrels between Indian Princes especially with an intention to make advantage of them against the Europeans yet no man in his Right senses can doubt but that according to the Law of Nations it is Lawful for any Europeans to make Treaties and Alliances with Indian Princes which make a very considerable part of man-kind and that the abuse which may be made of this is no more able to take away this liberty than evil usage which European Princes may make and do very often of their Alliances can deprive them of their Right of making them when they think fit That the Artifice of which the English Commissioners speak viz. of making a War between the Indian Princes to exclude the English from the Trade as they say in the Sixth and Seventh Paragraphs of their demands is an old and discovered trick of the Dutch they will never prove But it will be seen on the contrary in the sequel of this Answer that the Government of Batavia cannot be accused to having either kindled or fomented the War of Bantam of which is now treated or perfidiously drawing the young King under their Yoke but by want of Charity and a passionate Spirit which discovers it self in the End of their Demands wherein they seem to wish His Majesty would decide by force of Armes an Affair upon which on each part we ought with a Spirit of Submission and Acquiescency to wait for the judgment of your Excellencies As to the second point viz. The Justice of the Demand and the Ground upon which it is founded which ought to be the truth of the Complaints of the English Company against that of Holland upon the matter of Bantam the underwritten Persons can't doubt but that your Excellencies will think fit and proper before the matter be entred into that it be examined if it be true that on the parts of the High and Mighty Lords the States-General and on that of the Dutch Company it hath been agreed as the Commissioners of the English Company do alledge that Restitution should be made of Bantam the discussion of which Affair as a preliminary Questio prejudicialis ought to precede the examination of the truth of the Complaints in which consists the principal cause for in Effect