place
in all the island where vessels could lie in safety, as they were
unable to take it by force, decided to accomplish their design by
treachery. They sent two of their vessels, on board which they put
their best soldiers, who feigned to have been very badly injured by a
storm, making their vessels appear dismasted and broken in many
directions, and all the soldiers pretending sickness. The English,
touched by this misery, which was only a sham, invijed the chief
officers to come on shore to refresh themselves ; this invitation they
immediately accepted, ordering as many of their people as possible to
leave the vessel, under pretext that they were ill, and could be treated better on shore than on board. While the
principal officers were at table with the English, who had civilly
invited them to dinner, to accomplish their object, they took with them
more attendants than politeness permitted, and, to make more come on
shore they ordered them to bring from the vessels, from time to time,
many kinds of wine, and those who brought it had the word to remain
there, of which the English, who were not on their defence, took no
notice. The Dutch, seeing that they had drunk well, and that it was
time to execute their design, started a quarrel with the English chief;
and drawing their arms which they had concealed, threw themselves upon
the English garrison, whom they murdered without meeting with much
resistance. It was thus they made themselves masters of the fort, which
they possessed till they were driven from it by the Chinese. I could
tell of many other treacheries by the Dutch,1 but it is time to return to that which followed the burning of the French vessels in the Batavia roads.
The
two brothers Renaud, of whom I have above spoken, received at Bantam a
small amount of money from the distribution which was made of the
proceeds of the sale of the small vessel, and of the goods which it had
brought from Macassar, found means to go to Goa, and knew so well how
to gain the good opinion of the Portuguese, that they were permitted to
trade in all places where the Portuguese were
1
Tavernier subsequently resolved to do so, and in his third volume we
have his accumulated charges against the Dutch, under the title, Conduits des Hollandois en Ask.
