thirdly the decay of many good Marriners both able in body by their diligence labour and continual exercise of Fishing and expert by reason thereof in the knowledge of the Sea-Coasts as well within this Realm as in other parts beyond the Seas It was therefore enacted that no manner of Persons English Denizens or strangers at that time or any time after dwelling in England should buy any Fish of any strangers in the said Ports of Flanders Zealand Picardie France or upon the Sea between shoare and shoare c. This Act by many continuances was continued from Parliament to Parliament until the first of Queen Marie and from thence to the end of the next Parliament and then expired For Conclusion seeing by that which hath formerly been declared it evidently appeareth that the Kings of England by immemorable prescription continual usage and possession the acknowledgment of all our neighbour-Neighbour-States and the Municipal Laws of the Kingdom have ever held the Sovereign Lordship of the Seas of England and that unto his Majesty by reason of his Sovereignty the supream command and Jurisdiction over the passage and Fishing in the same rightfully apperteineth considering also the natural Scite of those our Seas that interpose themselves between the great Northern Commerce of that of the whole world and that of the East West and Southern Climates and withal the infinite commodities that by Fishing in the same is daily made It cannot be doubted but his Majesty by means of his own excellent Wisdom and Virtue and by the Industry of his faithful Subjects and People may easily without injustice to any Prince or Person whatsoever be made the greatest Monarch for Command and Wealth and his People the most opulent and Flourishing Nation of any other in the world And this the rather for that his Majesty is now absolute Commander of the Brittish Isle and hath also enlarged his Dominions over a great part of the Western Indies by means of which extent of Empire crossing in a manner the whole Ocean the Trade and persons of all Nations removing from one part of the world to the other must of necessity first or last come within compass of his power and jurisdiction And therefore the Sovereignty of our Seas being the most precious Jewel of his Majestie 's Crown and next under God the principal means of our Wealth and Safety all true English hearts and hands are bound by all possible means and diligence to preserve and maintain the same even with the uttermost hazzard of their Lives their Goods and Fortunes Thus you see what wonderous advantages may redound to the Felicity and Glory of this Nation if God give hearts and resolutions to vindicate those rights which are now most impiously and injuriously invaded There is also another Dominion of the Sea belonging to the King of Great Brittain and that of a very large Extent upon the Shore of America as on the Virginian Sea and the Islands of the Barbadoes and Saint Christophers and many other places but how farr our English Colonies Transported into America have Possessed themselves of the Sea there is not exactly as yet discovered A further Assertion that the Sea is under the Laws of Propriety Declared in a full Convention betwixt Ferdinando Emperour of Germany and the Republick of Venice in the Year 1563. AT this Convention the Complaints on both sides were opened And it being required in the Name of his Emperial Majesty that it may be Lawful for his Subjects and others to Traffick freely in the Adriatick Sea It was answered by the Advocate of the Common-Wealth of Venice that Navigation indeed ought to be free yet those things at which his Imperial Majesty found himself agrieved were no ways repugnant to this Freedom for as much as in Countries which are most free Those who have the Dominion thereof receive Custome and do give Bounds and prescribe Order by which way all Merchandize shall pass and therefore none should finde themselves agrieved if the Venetians for their own Respects did use to do so in the Adriatick Seas which is under their Dominion there being nothing more known then that the Common-Wealth of Venice were Lords of the Adriatick Sea and do exercise that Dominion which from time out of minde it had always done as well in receiving of Customes as in assigning of places for the Exaction of it And that according to former Capitulations the Subjects of the Venetians were to have no less liberty in the Lands of the Austrians then the Austrian Subjects in the Sea of Venice And if his Imperial Majesty within his own State upon the Land will not permit that the Subjects of the Common-Wealth of Venice shall go which way they list but doth constrain them to go by such places onely where customs is to be paid he cannot with Justice demand that his Subjects may passe by or through the Sea of the Republick which way they please but must content himself that they passe that way onely which shall best stand with the Advantage of those who have the Dominion over it And if his Majesty cause Custome to be paid upon his Land why may not the Venetians likewise do it upon their Sea He demanded of them if by the Capitulation they would have it that the Emperour should be restrained or hindred from the taking of Custome And if not why would they have the Venetians tyed thereunto by a Capitulation which speaks of both Potentates equally with the same words He proceeded in a Confirmation of the Truth that the Republick had the Dominion of the Sea and although the proposition was true that the Sea is common and free yet it is no otherwise to be understood there in the same sence when usually we say that the high-way are common free by which is meant that they cannot be Usurped by any private Person for his sole proper service but remain to the use of every one Not therefore that they are so free as that they should not be under the Protection and Government of some Prince and that every one might do therein Licenciously whatsoever pleaseth Him either by Right or by Wrong for as much as such Licenciousness or Anarchy both of God Nature as well by Sea as by Land That the true liberty of the Sea excludes it not from the protection and superiority of such as maintain it in Liberty nor from the Subjection to the Laws of such as have Command over it but rather necessarily it includes it That the Sea no less then the Land is Subject to be divided amongst men appropriated to Cities and Potentates which long since was ordained by God from the beginning of man kind as a thing most Natural And this was well understood by Aristotle when he said that unto Maritine Cities the Sea is the Territory because from thence they take their Sustenance and Defence A thing which cannot possibly be unless that part of it be appropriated
have the main of what passed in those days in this particular with their insolent demeanour lively described in these following Collections taken out of several Dispatches that passed betwixt Secretarie Naunton and Sir Dudly Carlton Lord Ambassadour from the King to the States of the United Provinces In a Letter of Secretarie Naunton's to the said Ambassadour dated at Whitehall the 21. of December 1618. I finde these passages I Must now let your Lordship know that the States Commissioners and Deputies both having attended His Majesty at New-Market and there presented their Letters of Credence returned to London on Saturday was a seven-night and upon Tuesday had Audience in the Council-Chamber where being required to communicate the points of their Commission they delivered their meditated Answer at length The Lords upon perusal of it appointed my Lord Bining and me to attend His Majesty for directions what Reply to return to this Answer of theirs which I represented to their Lordships yesterday to this effect That his Majesty found it strange that they having been so often required by your Lordship His Majesties Ambassadour as from himself in their publique Assembly to send over Commissioners fully Authorized to Treat and Conclude not onely of all differences grown between the Subjects of both States touching the Trade to the East-Indies and the Whale-Fishing and to Regulate and settle a Joynt and an even Traffick in those Quarters but withal to take order for a more indifferent course of determining other Questions growing between our Merchants and them about their Draperies and the Tare And more especially to determine his Majesties Right for the sole Fishing upon all the Coasts of his Three Kingdoms into which they had of late times incroached farther then of Right they could And lastly for the reglement and reducing of their Coyns to such a proportion and correspondence with those of his Majesties and other States that their Subjects might make no Advantage to transport our Monies by inhansing their valuation there All which they confessed your Lordship had instanced them for in his Majesties Name that after all this attent on his Majesties part and so long deliberation on theirs they were come at last with a Proposition to speak only to the two first points and instructed thereunto with bare Letters of Credance only which His Majesty takes for an Imperious fashion of proceeding in them as if they were come hither to Treat of what themselves pleased and to give Law to His Majesty in his own Kingdom and to propose and admit of nothing but what should tend meerly to their own ends To the second Whereas they would decline all debate of the Fishings upon His Majesties Coasts first by Allegations of their late great Losses and an Esmeute of their people who are all interessed in that Question and would be like to break out into some combustion to the hazard of their State which hath lately scaped Naufrage and is not yet altogether calmed What is this put to raise an advantage to themselves out of their disadvantage But afterwards they professe their lothnesse to call it in doubt or Question claiming an immemorial possession seconded by the Law of Nations To which His Majesty will have them told that the Kings of Spain have sought leave to Fish there by Treaty from this Crown and that the King of France a nearer Neighbour to our Coast then they to this day requests leave for a few Vessels to Fish for Provision of his own houshold And that it appears so much the more strange to His Majesty that they being a State of so late date should be the first that would presume to question His Majesties Antient Right so many hundred yeers inviolably possessed by His Progenitors and acknowledged by all other Antient States and Princes That themselves in theit publick Letters of the last of Iune sent by your Lordship seemed then to confirm their immemorial possession as they term it with divers Treaties as are of the year 1550. and another between His Majesties Predecessors and Charles the Fifth as Prince of those Provinces and not by the Law of Nations To which their last Plea His Majesty would have them told that he being an Islander-Prince is not ignorant of the Laws and Rights of his own Kingdoms nor doth expect to be taught the Laws of Nations by them nor their Grotius whose ill thriving might rather teach others to disavow his Positions and his honesty called in question by themselves might render his Learning as much suspected to them as his Person This His Majesty takes for an high point of his Soveraignty and will not have it slighted over in any fashion whatsoever Thus I have particulated unto you the manner of our proceeding with them Let them advise to seek leave from His Majesty and to acknowledge Him His Right as other Princes have done and do or it may well come to passe that they that will needs bear all the World before them by their Mare Liberum may soon come to have neither Terram Solum nor Rempublicam liberam And in a Letter of the said Lord Ambassadour Carlton to Secretary Naunton of the 30. of December 1618. from the Hague we finde this Return touching the business of Fishery WHether the final resolution here will be according to His Majesties desire in that point concerning the Fishing upon the Coasts of His Three Kingdomes I cannot say And by somewhat which fell from the Prince of Orange by way of Discourse when he took leave of me on Monday last at his Departure I suspect it will not in regard the Magistrates of these Towns of Holland being newly placed and yet scarce fast in their Seats who do Authorize the Deputies which come hither to the Assembly of the States in all things they are to Treat and Resolve will not Adventure for fear of the people to determine of a Business on which the livelihood of Fifty Thousand of the Inhabitants of this one single Province doth depend I told the Prince that howsoever His Majesty both in Honour of His Crown and Person and Interest of his Kingdoms neither could nor would any longer desist from having His Right acknowledged by this State as well as by All other Princes and Common-wealths especially finding the same openly oppugned both by their Statesmen and men of War as the Writings of Grotius and the taking of John Brown the last year may testifie yet this acknowledgment of a Right and a Due was no exclusion of Grace and Favour and that the people of this Country paying that small Tribute upon every one of their Busses which is not so much as disputed by any other Nation whatsoever such was His Majesties well-wishing to this State that I presumed of his permission to suffer them to continue their course of Fishing which they might use thereby with more Freedom and less apprehension of molestation and let then before and likewise spare the Cost of some
of their Men of War which they yearly send out to maintain that by force which they may have of Courtesie The Prince answered that for himself at His Return from Utrecht he would do his best endeavour to procure His Majesty contentment but he doubted the Hollanders would apprehend the same effect in their payment for Fishing as they found in the passage of the Sound where at first an easie matter was demanded by the King of Denmark but now more exacted then they can possibly bear And touching their Men of War he said they must still be at the same charge with them because of the Pirates Withal he cast out a question to me whether this freedom of Fishing might not be redeemed with a summ of money To which I answered It was a matter of Royalty more then of Utility though Princes were not to neglect their profit And in another Letter of the said Lord Ambassadour from the Hague to Secretary Naunton of the 14. of January 1618. He gives him to understand That having been expostulated with but in friendly manner by certain of the States about his late Proposition as unseasonable and sharp they said they acknowledge their Commissioners went beyond their limits in their terms of Immemorial possession and immuable Droict de Gens for which they had no order Then saith he I desire them to consider what a wrong it is to challenge that upon right which these Provinces have hitherto enjoyed either by connivence or courtesie and yet never without claim on His Majesties side c. In another Letter of Secretary Naunton's to the Lord Ambassadour Carlton of the 21. of January 1618. we read thus AS I had dictated thus far I received direction from His Majesty to signifie to the States-Commissioners here That albeit their earnest entreaty and His Gracious consideration of the present trouble of their Church and State had moved His Majesty to consent to delay the Treaty of the great Fishing till the time craved by the Commissioners yet understanding by newand fresh complaints of His Martiners and Fishers upon the Coasts of Scotland that within these four or five last years the Low-Country-Fishers have taken so great advantage of His Majesties Tolleration that they have grown nearer and nearer upon His Majesties Coasts year by year then they did in preceeding Times without leaving any Bounds for the Country People and Natives to Fish upon their Prince's Coasts and oppressed some of His Subjects of intent to continue their pretended possession and driven some of their great Vessels through their Nets to deter others by fear of the like violence from Fishing near them c. His Majesty cannot forbear to tell them that he is so well perswaded of the Equity of the States and of the Honourable respect they bear unto him and to His Subjects for His sake that they will never allow so unjust and intolerable Oppressions for restraint whereof and to prevent the inconveniences which must ensue upon the continuance of the same His Majesty hath by me desired them to write to their Superiours to cause Proclamation to be made prohibiting any of their Subjects to Fish within Fourteen Miles of His Majesties Coasts this year or in any time hereafter untill order be taken by Commissioners to be authorised on both sides for a final setling of the main business His Majesty hath likewise directed me to command you from Him to make the like Declaration and Instance to the States there and to certifie His Majesty of their Answer with what convenient speed you may Thus sarr Secretary Naunton to the Ambassadour Now what effect the Ambassadour's Negotiation with the States had appears by a Letter of his from the Hague of the 6. of February 1618. to Kings James himself where among other passages he hath this I finde likewise in the manner of proceeding that treating by way of Proposition here nothing can be exspected but their wonted dilatory and evasive Answers their manner being to resey such Propositions from the States General to the States of Holland The States of Holland take advice of a 〈◊〉 Council residing at Delph which they call the Council of the Fishery From them such an Answer commonly comes as may be expected from such an Oracle The way therefore under correction to effect Your Majestiesintent is to begin with the Filhers themselves by publishing against the time of their going out Your resolution at what distance You will permit them to Fish whereby they will be forced to have recoursero their Council of Fishery that Council to the States of Holland and those of Holland to the States-General who then in place of being sought unto will for contentment of their Subjects seek unto Your Majesty A Proclamation by King Charles the First For restraint of Fishing upon His Seas and Coasts without Lisence WHere as Our Father of Blessed Memory Kings James did in the Seventh Year of His Reign of Great Brittain set forth a Proclamation touching Fishing whereby for the many important Reasons therein expressed all Persons of what Nation of Quality soever being not His Natural born 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 were restrained from fishing upon 〈◊〉 the Coasts and Seas of Great Brittain Ireland and the rest of the Istes adjacent where most usually heretofore Fishing had been until they had orderly demanded and obtained Licenses from Our said Father 〈◊〉 Commissioners in that behalf upon pain of such â—â—â—â—…sement as should be fit to be inflicted upon such wilful Offendors since which time albeit neither Our said Father nor Our Self have made any considerable execution of the said Proclamation but have with much Patience expected a voluntary conformity of Our Neighbours and Allies to so just and reasonable Prohibitions and Directions as are contained in the same And now finding by experience that all the inconveniences which occasioned that Proclamation are rather increased then abated We being very sensible of the premises and well knowing how farr We are obliged in Honour to maintain the rights of Our Crown especially of so great consequence have thought it necessary by the Advice of our Privy Council to renew the aforesaid restraint of Fishing upon Our aforesaid Coasts Seas without License first obtained from Us and by these presents to make publick Declaration that Our resolution is at times convenient to keep such a competent strength of Shiping upon Our Seas as may by God's blessing be sufficient both to hinder such further encroachments upon Our Regalties and asâ—â—â—t and Proâ—â—â—â— those Our God Friends and Allies who shall henceforth by virtue of Our Licenses to be first obtained endeavour to take the benefit of Fishing upon Our Coasts and Seas in the places accustomed Given at our Palace of Westminster the 10 day of May in the Twelfth year of our Reign of England Scotland France and Ireland This Proclamation being set forth in the year 1636. served to speak the intent of those Naval preparations made before in the year 1635. which were so
numerous and well-provided that our Netherland Neighbours being touched with the apprehension of some great design in hand for the Interest of England by Sea and of the guilt that lay upon their own Consciences for their bold Encroachments soon betrayed their Jealousies and Fears and in them a sense of their offences before ever the Proclamation was made publick As I might shew at large if it were requisite by certain Papers of a publick Character yet in being But there is one Instar omnium which may serve in stead of all and it is an acute Letter of Secretary Coke's that was written to Sir William Boswel the Kings Resident then at the Hague the Original whereof is still reserved among the publick Papers In which Letter he sets forth the Grounds and Reasons of preparing that gallant Navy with the Kings resolution to maintain the Right derived from his Ancestors in the Dominion of the Seas and therefore I here render a true Copy of it so farr as concerns this business as most pertinent to our purpose SIR BY Your Letters and otherwise I perceive many jealousies and discourses are raised upon the preparations of His Majesties Fleet which is now in such forwardness that we doubt not but within this Month it will appear at Sea It is therefore expedient both for your satisfaction and direction to inform you particularly what was the occasion and what is His Majesties intention in this work First we hold it a principle not to be denied That the King of Great Brittain is a Monarch at Land and Sea to the full extent of His Dominions and that it concerneth him as much to maintain His Soveraignty in all the British Seas as within His three Kingdoms because without that these cannot be kept safe nor he preserve his honour and due respect with other Nations But commanding the Seas he may cause his Neighbours and all Countries to stand upon their guard whensoever he thinks fit And this cannot be doubted that whosoever will encroach upon him by Sea will do it by Land also when they see their time To such presumption Mare liberum gave the first warning-piece which must be answered with a defence of Mare clausum not so much by Discourses as by the louder Language of a powerful Navy to be better understood when overstrained patience seeth no hope of preserving her Right by other means The Degrees by which his Majesties Dominion at Sea hath of latter years been first impeached and then questioned are as considerable as notorious First to cherish and as it were to nourish up our unthankful Neighbors We gave them leave to gather wealth and strength upon our Coasts in our Ports by our Trade and by our People Then they were glad to invite our Merchants Residence with what priviledges they would desire Then they offered to us even the Soveraignty of their Estates and then they sued for License to Fish upon the Coasts and obtained it under the Great Seal of Scotland which now they suppresse And when thus by leave or by connivence they had possessed themselves of our Fishings not onely in Scotland but in Ireland and England and by our Staple had raised a great stock of Trade by these means they so encreased their Shiping and power at Sea that now they endure not to be kept at any distance Nay they are grown to that confidence to keep guards upon our Seas and then to project an Office and Company of Assurance for the Advancement of Trade and withal prohibit us free commerce even within our Seas and take our Ships and goods if we conform not to their Placarts What insolencies and cruelties they have committed against us heretofore in Ireland in Greenland and in the Indies is too well known to all the world In all which though our sufferings and their wrong may seem forgotten yet the great interest of His Majesties honour is still the same and will refresh their Memories as there shall be cause For though charity must remit wrongs done to private men yet the reflection upon the publick may make it a greater charity to do Justice on crying crimes All this notwithstanding you are not to conceive that the work of this Fleet is either revenge or execution of Justice for these great offences past but chiefly for the future to stop the violent Current of that presumption whereby the Men of War and Free-booters of all Nations abusing the favour of His Majesties peaceable and gracious Government whereby he hath permitted all His Friends and Allies to make use of His Seas and Ports in a reasonable and free manner and according to his Treaties have taken upon them the boldness not only to come confidently at all times into all his Ports and Rivers but to convey their Merchants ships as high as his chief City and then to cast Anchor close upon his Magazins and to contemn the Commands of his Officers when they required a farther distance stance But which is more intolerable have assaulted and taken one another within his Majesties Chamber and within his Rivers to the scorn and contempt of his Dominion and Power and this being of late years an ordinary practice which we have endeavoured in vain to reform by the ways of Justice and Treaties the world I think will now be satisfied that we have reason to look about us And no wise man will doubt that it is high time to put our selves in this Equipage upon the Seas and not to suffer that Stage of Action to be taken from us for want of our appearance So you see the general ground upon which our Counsels stands In particular you may take notice and publish as cause requires That His Majesty by this Fleet intendeth not a Rupture with any Prince or State nor to infringe any point of his Treaties but resolveth to continue and maintain that happy peace wherewith God hath blessed his Kingdom and to which all his Actions and Negotiations have ohitherto tended as by your own instructions you may fully understand But withal considering that Peace must be maintained by the arme of power which onely keeps down War by keeping up Dominion His Majesty thus provoked finds it necessary even for his own defence and safety to re-assume and keep his antient and undoubted Right in the Dominion of these Seas and to suffer no other Prince or State to encroach upon him thereby assuming to themselves or their Admirals any Soveraign command but to force them to perform due homage to his Admirals and Ships and to pay them acknowledgements as in former times they did He will also set open and protect the free Trade both of his Subjects and Alies And give them such safe Conduct and Convoy as they shall reasonably require He will suffer no other Fleets or Men of War to keep any guard upon these Seas or there to offer violence or take prizes or booties or to give interruption to any lawfull intercourse In a word
to yonder Green and take their Farewell of them there for there their Executioners stood in a readiness to dispatch them whereat the poor Bandeneses being much amazed cryed out O Apetow which is in English O what is this Immediately they were hurried away to the place of Execution and by the Iapan Slaves the cruel Instruments of the Hollanders they were cut asunder in the middle alive and their divided Quarters were sent some of them to Lantore some of them to Polleroon and other Islands belonging unto Banda In the same year they put to Death the Chiefest of the Inhabitants of Polleroon amongst whom was the Chief Priest of that Island in whose side the Dutch having cut a hole they commanded that Gun-powder should be put into it which at that instant being set on fire by a new way of torment they deprived him of his life It is very observable that although these Inhabitants of Polleroon were under the English Protection yet their numbers being inconsiderable to the strength of the Dutch the English durst not contradict them So that these poor people were not only murdered before their faces but the English perceiving how Tyrahnical withall the Dutch were and how incroaching upon them and what were their cruelties which they practised at Amboyna of which more in its due place in the year One thousand six hundred and twenty two they abandoned the Banda Islands which the Dutch have ever since possessed and do still wrongfully and unjustly enjoy not permitting the Enlish to have any Commerce with them And in this place I shall not forget to give you the memorable account of the innumerable Shoales of Mackerell which was the Chiefest thing that supported those Islands they came always in their season in great Multitudes and if at any time they appeared not so numerous they were sure to have arrived within the limits of two or three dayes and in far greater abundance then usually before but after that the English had left those Islands they did forsake them also as places polluted with Blood and Avarice or as if they would come to no Coasts but where Humanity and Probity or at least where the English had their Residence Much about the same time Captain Iourdan sayling from Bantham with two Ships the one called the Sampson the other the Hound to the great Islands of Burnew he discovered three or four Dutch Ships standing in for the same Port and being confident that they intended no good to him he gave order to prepare for the Encounter fully resolving to fight it out to the last Man rather then to yield himself to the unmerciful hands of his Insulting and Approaching Enemies the Dutch summoned the English to deliver the Ships upon fair Quarter but Captain Iourdan a well complexioned Man who had a great heart in a little body absolutely refused to yield upon any Condition whatsoever The Dutch pretending to be unwilling to shed blood called out to the English and told them that they knew very well that little Captain Iourdan was there and desired them to perswade him to Parley with them Captain Iourdan being informed of it refused to have any conference with them whereupon they desired that he would but show himself upon the Quarter Deck that by a fair complyance they might stop the effusion of blood which otherwise must come to pass Whereupon Captain Iourdan thinking that to speak with them could not much prejudice him did show himself on the Quarter Deck after the exchange of some few words told them that he knew the Justice of his Cause and the Injustice of Theirs and was resolved to fight it out The Hollander alledging that their strength was far greater then his and it was rather Desparateness then true Valour to fight upon such a Disadvantage it prevailed nothing at all with Captain Iourdan who told them he questioned not his own strength but was resolved to fight it out and to leave the success unto God The Dutch finding him intractable to their Demands did hold him still in Discourse until a Musquet Bullet from one of their ships laid him dead upon the Deck as he was in Parley with them At that very instant of time whether by Treachery or by Accident it is uncertain a part of our other English Ship called the Hound was blown up and many of our men mortally hurt the Amazement was so great that the English were inforced to yield to the mercy of their Enemies who having taken them did cause them to be laden with bolts and did not allow them so much favour as to the Heathen for they were permitted to walk up and down with a chain of Iron which is far more easie then to lye in bolts of Iron Thus may we observe what injury and wrong we have all along sustained by the Dutch who have got many of those Islands where now they have seated themselves by cruelty and blood-shed and by murthering the English and their Friends These indeed are sad Relations and though dismall in themselves they are but the Prologues to the Tragedy at Amboyna Amboyna is an Island lying near unto Seran fruitful of Cloves for the buying and gathering whereof the English Company had for their parts planted five Factories the Chiefest whereof was at the Town of Amboyna but the Hollanders who had already dispossessed them of their residence at Polleroon and at Lantore had a labouring desire to heave them out also at Amboyna and at Bonda several complaints and discontents did every day arise which were transferred to Iaccatra in the Island of Iava Major to the Council of Defence of both Nations there residing who also not agreeing in points of difference did send them over into Europe to be decided by both Companies here or if they could not agree amongst themselves they should then be determined by the Kings Majesty and the Lords the States General according to the Article of the Treaty in the year One thousand six hundred and nineteen which although it was then Articled and Agreed upon by both Nations yet the Ambition and Avarice of the Dutch would not admit of so deliberute a course but with rash hands would of themselves cut their way to their own ends and use neither delay nor conscience where gain or profit did appear The English Factories at Amboyna began to be rich and were a great eye-fore unto them who could not indure that any should Traffick there but themselves On the eleventh therefore of February in the year One thousand six hundred and twenty two a laponen who served the Dutch as a Souldier was apprehended upon suspition of Treason and put to the Torture the pretense was for asking the Sentinel what was the strength of the Castle The Extremity of the Torture was such that it prompted him to confess whatsoever he perceived they would have him to say which was that himself and sundry others of his Country-men there had contrived the taking of