the latter Treatise they say The Netherland's Company has with a few inconsiderable Potentates or Princes made Contracts over a privative or seclusive Traffick of some kinds of Wares which their Countrey did yield but if the English Company should maintain this to be an unlawful thing they must condemn their own doings and so as it were pronounce sentence against what themselves have done in former times and of which many Examples may be alledged Now if the English Company have made such Contracts sometimes without and sometimes together with us when we were in a near League Anno 1619. And some years following as may be seen and will appear in the publick Testimonies and when the English Company had such Contracts with us together then according to their sentiment it was lawful and good But now the Netherland's Company do the same without them as having no Communion or Fellowship with them in the least in the Indies ought they not to call to memory that in former times the English Merchants had the whole Traffick of the Caviar which Rushland or Muscovy did yield and to come yet closer to them have they not made in the Indies and yet daily seek to make such Contracts especially on the Coast of Malabar To which we answer with Truth and Impartiality First That when that Treaty was concluded between the Dutch and English 1619 in the peaceable Reign of King James the First it was managed in England on the Dutch's part by that Worthy Incomparable Person Hugo Grotius and we believe with an upright intent in him and the High and Mighty Lords States that imployed him in that Negotiation But how the Dutch Company immediately upon the Conclusion of that Treaty contrary to the Lords States upright intention turned the use of it in such a manner as we believe the Dutch Company would not have us remember though it be upon Record in many Printed Books as to screw the English by Force and Fraud out of all the Trade of the Spice Islands which is of more Value and Advantage than the whole Trade of India besides 2. To come nearer and close to the Question We say it is lawful for the Dutch or any Nation to make such exclusive Contracts and to secure the performance of such Contracts by a Fort or Factory But if any Prince or People having made such Contracts with any Nation suppose the Dutch and the Dutch do not build any Fort or Factory in such Princes Countrey nor it may be come in Seven Years after to buy his Commodity or will not pay him for his Commodity but at lower Rates or in Truck for worse Goods or for any other Cause grow weary of such Contract and the English be invited or come thither purposely to bargain with him and by his Consent he being Lawful Soveraign do build a Fort or Factory in his Countrey We say in such case if the Dutch do by Fraud or hiring of Cut-throats Black People or by open Force endeavour to destroy the English or any other Nation so settled such Practice is a violation of Natural Right Destroyes the Peace established by Treaties and is of the same Nature as open War. 3. To make use of the Instance mentioned in the aforesaid Treatise Page 27. True it is the English had by Contract formerly the sole Traffick of Caviar in Rushia by agreement with the Emperour of Vosco but suppose as it happened the Emperour grew weary of this Contract with the English for any Cause just or unjust and that he had sent for the Dutch and agreed with them for all that Commodity for the future We say with submission in this very case it would have been notoriously unjust in the sence of all Christian Nations for the English to have made War upon the Dutch for that sole Cause 4. We say in Fact That notwithstanding the lawfulness of making such Contracts the English did never attempt to hinder by Arms any Nation from Trading with any Company or People whatsoever where they had only a Factory how great soever that Factory were 5. We say the English where they have a Fort did never attempt to hinder any Nation from Trading with any People out of the reach of their own Guns much less from Trading with any Prince upon the same Island or Continent that had Sovereign Power in his own Dominions in whose Dominions they had neither Fort nor Factory 6. We say the English did never deny the Dutch Refreshment at any of their Forts but have often entertained them when missing the Cape by bad Weather they came to St. Hellena in great Extremity and were relieved in all their wants with the same kindness as they could have been by their own Fathers or Brothers But the Dutch have often though not always denyed the English Company Refreshment even of Water when they have been in great distress as particularly and lately the Ship Pryaman at Porcat when there was on Board her many Passengers Men Women and Children ready to perish for want only of that cheap but necessary Refreshment Water as appears by Mr. Thomas Michel's and Captain Vnkettle's Letters of 5 th Feb. 1686-87 wherein the Expressions against the Dutch Cruelty are so harsh that we forbear to recite them in terminis but the Originals are ready to be produced Page 27. They take upon them to know very particularly and specially what Powers and Authorities His Majesty now Reigning whom God long preserve has granted His present Priviledged East-India Company but they betray their Ignorance therein in giving so lame an Accompt of that matter which for their better Information we shall assure them there is no Power or Authority whatsoever to the Exercise of Soveraign Power in India under His Majesty or otherwise that was ever granted to the Dutch Company by their present or former Oct-troy but His Majesty hath been graciously pleased to grant the same Powers to His present East-India Company for the good and benefit of His Kingdoms His Majesty having observed by His great Experience that it is impossible for His Subjects of the East-India Company to support the English Dominion in India against the Continual Unwarrantable Designs of the Dutch except the English Company be Armed and intrusted with the same Extent of Power and Authority which the Dutch Company have and may lawfully enjoy from and under their Sovereigns the High and Mighty Lords the States General Page 29. They bring up again that Trifle of an Argument which hath been bafled a Hundred times in former Debates and is fit only to be urged to Women and Children their Words are If then it deserve to be judged Injustice Violence and Oppression in us by lawful means to seek in one and the other Countrey out or beyond Europe to get and appropriate to our selves the Trade thereof Then we know not how possibly the English can be judg'd blameless considering what they have done in Carolina Virginia New-England and elsewhere
engross the whole Trade of Pepper which if attained will consequently destroy the English Navigation and carry with it the Universal Trade of India in all other Commodities as well as Pepper The said Deputies therefore have been obliged in duty to inform His Most Sacred Majesty and the Lords Commissioners Decisors as they intimated to Your Honours in their last Paper what they judged to be the only means to preserve any part of the English Trade in India and to lay the foundation of an Everlasting Peace between the two Companies Which opinion the said Deputies are ready not only to Defend and Submit to the Lords Commissioners Decisors according to the Treaty of the Year 1674-75 but to demonstrate to their Lordships that all other tedious circumstantial discourses tend only to protract time Signed Joseph Ashe Governour Josia Child Deputy Benj. Bathurst Jer. Sambrooke Dated at London 17 June 1685. The Fourth Paper Received from the Dutch Commissioners Instructors To the Honorable Gentlemen Sir Joseph Ashe Baronet Governour of English East-India-Company Sir Josia Child Baronet Deputy-Governour Sir Benjamin Bathurst and Sir Jeremy Sambrooke Knights Deputies of the said Company for the Affairs of Bantam ALthough the under-written Deputies of the East-India-Company of the United Provinces cannot assure themselves well to understand the true sense of the Memorial that they received from your Honours yet they find themselves obliged to Witness how much they are satisfied with the protestation they have made not long to defer the discussion of the Controversies about Bantam in the form prescribed by the meeting in the Year 1674-75 To which seeing the under-written Deputies have been a long time conformable they shall be very glad that the said controversies may be debated as soon as possible according to the same Form before the Lords Commissioners that must decide it Signed G. Hooft Jacob Van Hoorne S. V. Bloquery A. Paets Dated at Westminster 19th June 1685. Whereupon the English Commissioners Instructors did present unto the Lords Commissioners Decisors the following Paper Together with their Demands for Dammages sustained by the surprize of Bantam To the Right Honourable the Lords Commissioners for determination of Differences between the English and Dutch East-India-Companies occasioned by the late surprize of Bantam 1. IN Obedience to Your Lordships commands intimated to us in the Robes Chamber at White-Hall the 17th Instant We do humbly present your Lordships with Copies of all Papers that have passed between the Dutch Commissioners Instructors and our Selves since their Arrival in England We do humbly offer it to your Lordships as our Opinion and the Opinion of all English Men that have any knowledge of the Affairs of India That nothing less than the withdrawing of all the Dutch Forces from Bantam and the Territories thereof belonging to both or either of the late Kings of Bantam on the 14th day of March 1681-82 and the surrender of the Fort of Bantam unto His Majesty undemolished can prevent the Dutch from being immediately Masters of the entire Trade of Pepper And what fatal consequences to His Majesty and His Kingdoms do depend upon such their Engrossing of that Trade we have Demonstrated in Writing to His late Majesty of Blessed Memory And the Memorial relating thereunto now remains in the hands of the Clerks of His Majesties Most Honourable Privy Council And although His late Majesty did only demand from the Dutch the withdrawing of all their Forces from Bantam c. and the satisfying the East-India-Company for the dammages sustained by reason of the unjust surprisal thereof Our later advices from India have given us sufficient Reasons to justifie our further Demand of having the Fort of Bantam delivered to His Majesty undemolished for the following Reasons 1. Because as we foresaw when we humbly presented our Memorial aforesaid to His late Majestie The Dutch have since not only obstructed but Hostilely invaded our Trade and shot at our Servants with Bullets on the Coast of Mallabar to deter and beat them off from that little remainder we had there of the Pepper Trade 2. We since understand that the Dutch have so miserably enthralled and improverished both the late Kings of Bantam that they are not now both able to pay us 5 l. of that vast Debt they owe us otherwise than by that Fort of Bantam which was built with the Money the young King owed us and the Guns mounted on the said Fort are our own Guns for which we were never paid 3. Because the Young King as we have been credibly informed and do believe assassinated formerly our Agent and Factors though for what Cause or who instigated them thereunto we know not And now the Dutch say it was He the said Young King and not They that commanded us away from Bantam And therefore we dare not without a strong Garrison to defend us trust our Servants and Estates in his Dominions neither will any go thither that are worth sending without such security be provided for their Lives 4. Because if the Old King of Bantam had a right to Bantam and to the Territories thereof They are now His Majesties by His Donation of them to the late King of ever Blessed Memory If the Right thereof lyes as the Dutch say in the Young King He hath been so inhumane ungrateful and bloody an Enemy to His Majesties Subjects confessedly without the least Cause or Provocation on their part that we humbly conceive His Majesties Honour cannot be repaired without invading his City and Countrey And the rather because though he be called a King he is in truth none but a perfect Slave to the Batavians and an Executioner of their will and pleasure 5. If the Dutch say the Young King is their Allie and they are bound in honour to protect him We say by that Rule there can never be Peace between the English and the Dutch in India And they may be as good Right easily make a Quarrel between any other Indian Princes and their Neighbours or their own Sons or Brothers and then take a side and condition with the prevailing side to turn us and all other Europeans out of their Countries and we must not revenge our Selves because they will protect such injured and injurious Princes as their Allies Whereas by the Articles of Peace the English and Dutch ought mutually to assist and help each other 6. This is an old practice of the Dutch So they made a quarrel with the Macassars and when the differing Princes were equally matched they assisted one side which turned the ballance and they conditioned with the prevailing side to turn the English Nominatim and all other Europeans out of their Countrey 7. The Dutch were doing the same thing again between two Kings or Rajas on the Coast of Mallabar when our last Letters came from that Coast 8. If the Dutch say the old King was assisted by the English against his Son the Young King and therefore he turned the English out of his Countrey We
the story of it could be invented by the English Deputies who refer themselves to the memory of one of your Excellencies but believe that time may have obliterated the traces of remembrance of it it not being at all credible that a man so circumspect as Monsieur Van Dam should think fit to reprove in a Letter the behaviour of Governour Spillman in relation to the Affairs of Bantam without having cleared to the bottom the proceedings of the said Government which is incompatible with that which the said Monsieur Van Dam has since judged and still judges concerning the Affairs of Bantam being so fully perswaded of the right of the Dutch Companies pretensions and the wrong of that of England in these Affairs that all the Letters which the under-written have received from them concerning the matter of Bantam during their stay in England are markes full of this perswasion So that it cannot be doubted without doing great injustice to Monsieur Van Dam but that the said Letter was only conditional that is to say that he condemned the behaviour of Spillman only in case that the news which his friend might have sent him were true The English Deputies have also very well understood the sence of the under-written who as they in the same Eighth Paragraph had bestowed on them the gift of prophecy For it is evident that the under-written deducing in their answer the Argument of Cui Bono as the English Deputies calls it to prove that it was morally impossible for those at Batavia to make a difference between the Old and Young King of Bantam with the prospect of taking advantage of the success of this War unless that by the gift of Prophecy they could be able to penetrate into the secrets of futurity which is remote from the sense which the English Deputies wrest from these words As the under-written confessed frankly that they do not very well understand the true sense of the last words of the same paragraph by reason of the frequent parenthesis are a little puzled they will make no answer to it But yet if the English Deputies do there offer to prove by irrefragable Arguments that the Dutch have driven the English from Bantam the under written will be very glad to be present at this proof not only that they may be able to destroy it but also to learn by what new sort of Logick they can prove by irrefragable arguments Facts which are proved by no deposition of any Witness without which notwithstanding Facts cannot be proved which depend on the testimony of the senses The Ninth Article of the said Reply shews also the little heed which the English Deputies have given to the Answer of the under-written as to the accusation which they talk of viz. the Dutch Deputies that the English should plunder their house at Bantam 't is equally ridiculous false and impossible in the posture wherein things were then for the English to do for so soon as the Dutch Landed there was a Report spread abroad that all the English were to be Massacred that night it is onely to read the answer of the under-written to be satisfyed that it has not pleased the English Deputies to give themselves the trouble of reading with the least application the Dutch Companies Apology wherein upon the matter of the plundering of the Dutch Factory these following words will be found It ought not to be wondred at that the King having re-taken the Town of Bantam from his Enemies wherewith he was encompassed should cause the motions of the English to be watched as well as the entry and going out of the Ships in the apprehension wherein he was some ill design might be carried on against his person estate And that in the confusion wherein the Affairs were then the goods of other Men were taken away which the Directors of the English Company themselves could no more have prevented than they could have hindred in the time when the Old King made himself Master of the Town of Bantam and that the Dutch Resident Caeff was forced to take flight to shelter himself from the violence of the Bantamers some English probably without the knowledge of their Masters from plundering the Dutch Factory There is no cause to doubt at present that after the reading of these words but that the English Deputies will themselves perceive their Error and the little care which they have taken to understand the sense of the under-written since it appears evidently in the said passage the time is not spoken of in which the Dutch Landed at Bantam as the English Deputies have understood it but the time when the old King made himself Master of Bantam and that the Dutch Resident Caess was forced to take flight There is certainly nothing more troublesome or tiresome than to see ones self forced to clear passages so very evident But as this without doubt ought to be attributed to the great Affairs the English Deputies have on their hands The under-written easily perswade themselves that in this negligence there is neither design nor mystery The Objections which the English Deputies make to themselves in the Tenth paragraph of their Reply and the Solution which they give to it shews that they have difficulty enough to reconcile the encroachments of the Dutch with the flourishing condition of the English Company As the under-written Deputies confess that the credit of the Dutch Company is engaged to His Majesty of Great Brittain as the English Deputies say in the Eleventh paragraph of their Reply The under-written deny expresly that That Faith ought to be violated in acquitting themselves of that which the Dutch Company owed to the King of Bantam by vertue of the Leagues which they have made with this Prince The Twelfth paragraph is injurious to the Dutch Company which far from not keeping their Faith makes a constant profession of acquitting themselves of it every where and towards all The under-written not observing any thing more in the following Articles which deserves any reflection we will persist to desire that Your Excellencies by your sentence will acquit the Dutch Company from the demands of that of England and that you will adjudge to the Dutch Company what they demand in Re-convention Dated at Westminster Nov. 19th 1685. Signed by G. Hooft Jacob Van Hoorne S. V. Blockquery A. Paets The Fourth Paper presented by the English Commissioners Instructors to the Lords Commissioners Decisors being in further Answer to the Papers presented by the Dutch Deputies Viz. To the Most Honourable the 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 Right Honourable WE are sorry and ashamed that we are necessitated to waste Your Lordships time but if the Dutch Deputies will persist injuriously to charge us with calumniating them because we are forced very gently and argumentatively only to touch some of their too