by Giles Milton
Courthope, 'very sick,' pleaded with him to rethink but Davis had already tired of Run and refused to stay on land, 'obstinately contrarying my command'. He was about to set sail when a native pinnace arrived from Great Banda with some surprising news. The elders of one of the villages on that island, hearing of events on Run, had held a meeting at which it was decided to surrender themselves 'unto his Majestie'. The island of Rozengain, four miles farther to the east, had followed suit and also asked for English protection.
Since Davis was adamant about putting to sea, Courthope ordered him to call first at Great Banda and then at Rozengain in order to receive the islanders' formal submission. He also suggested that Sophony Cozucke and three other merchants should hoist the flag of St George on the latter island and establish a factory there. Davis carried out these instructions but was unable to persuade Cozucke to step ashore at Rozengain. As soon as the village elders had surrendered their islands to the English king, the men set sail for a watering hole on the coast of Ceram.
The casks were soon filled and Davis shaped his course for Run, but scarcely had he put to sea than the Swan found itself in difficulty. The wily Dutch commander, Cornelis Dedel, had been spying on the English from his ship the Morgensterre and now decided to attack.The Swan was of a similar size to the Dutch vessel and at one time a 'very warlike ship,' but its crew were sick and hungry and most its guns were ashore on Run. Sensing his vulnerability, Davis tried to outsail the Morgensterre but 'they did shoote at me twice before I began, although I was in the sea eight leagues off when they chased me.' Aided by the wind, Dedel managed to manoeuvre his ship alongside the Swan, enabling his men to hurl grappling irons onto the decks of the English vessel. The Dutch then boarded the ship and, swords drawn, began a bloody hand- to-hand battle. 'We fought almost boord and boord for the space of one houre and a halfe,' recalled Davis,'untill they had killed five men, maymed three and hurt eight. And when we began we had not thirtie men able to doe anything, nor no wind to worke withall.' Those who hid inside the ship were flushed out with musket fire; those on deck were cut down with swords. One of the dead was the adventurous Sophony Cozuke, 'torne in pieces with a great shot,' while those who were 'maimed' were unlikely to live, 'having lost legs and arms, and almost all hope of life, if not dead already'.
After the Swan had been ransacked, her cabins smashed to pieces and all the trunks thrown into the sea, she was towed in triumph to Neira, the Hollanders 'much glorying in their victory, and showing the Bandanese their exploit, in the great disgrace of the English ... saying that the King of England might not compare with their great King of Holland, and that one Holland ship would take ten of the English ships, and that Saint George is now turned child'. It was three weeks before Courthope learned for certain of the Swan's capture — the news being brought to him by a local merchant who described how she was lying crippled and rifled under the guns of Neira Castle. One of Courthope's most trusted men, Robert Hayes, was despatched to Neira under a flag of truce to demand the restitution of both the ship and her crew. Not surprisingly the Dutch refused, boasting that it would only be a matter of weeks before they had captured the Defence as well. They also warned Courthope that unless he submitted without a fight, 'there will be much slaughter about it.'
The loss of the Swan was a terrible blow for the Englishmen left on Run for they were totally reliant on their ships, both for supplies and for escaping in an emergency. Although the Defence was still seaworthy, Courthope desperately needed her cannon to make his island fortress secure. Since disarming her would render the ship unserviceable, his only option was to draw her up onto the beach where she would be protected by the onshore gun batteries. This would maroon him on Run, a precariously exposed position which left him unable to replenish his supplies.
He was soon struck by further misfortune: long before he had a chance to land the Defence's weaponry, the ship mysteriously drifted from her anchorage and floated out to sea. Courthope initially thought this had happened through carelessness but it soon became apparent that the cable had been deliberately cut by 'a plot of knaves' whose long months on Run had proved more than they could endure. The ship was sailed to Neira where her crew surrendered to the Dutch and proceeded to hand over detailed plans of all the defences on Run and Nailaka. They were, remarked one of Courthope's more loyal companions, 'a company of treacherous villains who have deserved hanging better than wages'.
It was shortly after this unfortunate event that the Dutch governor-general, Laurens Reael, arrived in the Banda Islands to take over the handling of the crisis. Informed of the hopelessness of Courthope's position, Reael decided to bring to an end the English stand on Run by negotiation rather than force, inviting Courthope to Neira for discussions. But although the Dutch governor-general held the upper hand, his position was an awkward one for he could scarcely ignore Courthope's treaty, nor could he claim any authority over Run. Instead, he took the line that the islanders had pledged to sell their spices to the Dutch after the 1609 murder ofVerhoef — which was not true — and argued that this pledge still held.
Courthope agreed to meet with Reael as long as suitable hostages were sent to Run as a sign of good faith. These duly arrived bearing a letter from John Davis who languished in Neira prison.'If I lose any more men by your arrogance,' he warned Courthope, 'as I have here lost by sicknesse already, their lives and blouds shall rest upon your heads ... and this I will write with dying hand.' Courthope ignored the note and rowed across to the Dutch castle on Neira to discuss the future of the Banda Islands. Reael was the first to lay his bargaining chips on the table, offering to return the captured ships and men, pay compensation for everything that had been rifled and assist the English in leaving Run with a foil cargo of nutmeg. In return he demanded that England sign away forever her rights to the island. Courthope flatly refused to countenance such an offer, answering that 'I could not, unlesse I should turne traitor unto my King and Countrey, in giving up that right which I am able to hold; and also betray the countrey people, who had surrendered up their land to our King's Majestie.'
It was the sort of answer he might have expected from the Englishman, but Reael had naively assumed his offer would be accepted and, infuriated by such defiance, 'threw his hat on the ground and pulled his beard for anger'. Courthope now placed his chips on the table, informing Reael that he would leave Run immediately if the Dutchman would agree to the question of sovereignty being settled in Bantam or Europe. This time it was Reael s turn to refuse and the two men parted with the island's fate unresolved. It was clear that the issue could only be settled by war, and the Dutch governor-general curtly informed Courthope that within three days he 'would bring all his forces and take us perforce'.
These forces were not inconsiderable. In addition to his bases on Neira, Great Banda and Ai, Reael had more than a dozen ships at his disposal as well as a thousand soldiers. He had a total mastery of the sea, leaving Courthope with no option but to sit tight, knowing that Reael could stop any supply ships from reaching the island of Run.
Courthope had taken an enormous risk in declining Read's offer but he remained confident that the Dutch would find it almost impossible to mount a frontal assault on Run, even with their overwhelmingly superior forces. The battery on Nailaka was virtually impregnable and Courthope had a brave and highly competent network of spies at his disposal - local men — who rowed backwards and forwards between Run and the other islands keeping him informed of every development.
In the spring of 1617 he took a gamble, despatching six men to Bantam in a hired vessel, a small native pinnace, in order to urgently request reinforcements and aid. The man in charge of this perilous journey was Thomas Spurway, one of Courthope's most trusty lieutenants who, after numerous mishaps, pitched up in Bantam to plead Courthope's case. To his dismay, he discovered that John Jourdain had left for England some months earlier and instead found himself dealing with George Ball who had visited Run the previous year and must have understood the precario
usness of Courthope's position. But Ball's promotion had quite gone to his head and he spent much of his time tending to his extensive and lucrative private ventures. A man of inordinate pride and vanity he maintained a personal guard of fifty negro slaves and was preoccupied with continual quarrels with other factors, caring little for the Company's concerns. Indeed, for an entire year not a single ship was laden for England, even though there were six vessels in Bantam harbour and plenty of money in the coffers. Despite continued pleas from Spurway, Ball refused to send a ship to relieve Courthope.
Reael, too, had returned to Bantam, determined to bring to a satisfactory conclusion the tiresome business in the Banda Islands. He wrote to Ball ordering the immediate evacuation of Run and declaring that any ships found in the Banda Islands, or anywhere else in the Moluccas, would be sunk.'If you refuse,' he fulminated, 'we shall have to help ourselves with all means time and opportunity will give us, believing ourselves to be guiltless before God and the world.' Ball scoffed at this threat and stood defiant, so infuriating Jan Coen that he posted a declaration of war on the gates of the Dutch compound, 'threatening to put them [the English] to the edge of the sword'. Hostilities between the English and Dutch now became so serious that even the local ruler became alarmed. When he asked to see a copy of the Dutch declaration of war, the English ran back to the Dutch compound 'and when they were unable to detach the paper, they tore down the gate and brought it to him (document and all)'.
Ball now decided it was time to act. In a letter to Reael he wrote: 'for your threats, I respect them not, having God and a just cause for my comfort, and you a foul and horrid and shameful matter ... Hitherto I have shed no blood willingly; and if blood must be shed, it shall not be my fault, it being lawful in defence of myself.'
That Ball had shed no blood was hotly disputed by the Dutch. Fifteen of their compatriots had recently been massacred in Macassar, an atrocity they ascribed to the machinations of the English factor. Worse still, a number of Spanish and Portuguese prisoners had escaped from a Dutch ship in Bantam harbour and the English had promptly given them asylum. This last event tipped the balance from hatred into warfare and every day there were skirmishes on the streets of Bantam as rival sailors attacked each other with knives and cutlasses. The East India Company archives are littered with accusations of Dutch brutality; a steward named
William Clarke, for example, claims to have been wandering through the marketplace when set upon by a gang of Dutch sailors, stripped naked, and whipped across his bare back. They 'cruelly cut his flesh, and then washed him with salt and vinegar, and laid him again in irons'.
The seas around Bantam had become equally dangerous. In November 1617, the English pinnace Speedwell was met by three Dutch vessels carrying a Dutch dignitary from Bantam to Jakarta. She was ordered to lower her flag and submit to a search by Dutch troops but before she had a chance to comply (according to the English report) she was 'shot through and through, and lastly entered and taken, having one man wounded and one killed'. Her crew were manacled and the vessel towed towards Bantam in triumph, 'and it was verily thought they [the English and Dutch] would have fought together in the Road, for the General of the Hollanders had brought thither fourteen great ships ready to fight, where the English had nine, which they fitted for defence; but they fought not, for the Governor of Bantam forbade them to fight in his Road, and threatened them that if they did fight, contrary to his command, he would cut the throats of all their men that he should find upon the land.'
The English, still fuming over the seizure of the Swan and the Defence, now had the Speedwell to add to their list of grievances. They sought all possible means to recover the ships, as Coen recounted in a gleeful letter to Amsterdam. 'It caused a great to-do,' he wrote. 'One day they threaten to sail to Banda in force and take revenge, and the next they say they will attack our ships at sea. They expect to get even by reprisals in the Channel at home and they are going to break our heads. Daily they come up with new threats which clearly shows that they are quite confused.'
All the time that these arguments were raging in Bantam, Courthope had been maintaining his dogged stand on Run. Although he and his men were plagued by a constant lack of supplies, the occasional junk broke through the Dutch blockade and landed rice and arak on the island, to everyone's great relief. Many were suffering from malnutrition and dysentery - a result of their bland diet and the putrid and infected water. But after more than fifteen months of hardship, 'the captain' learned from a passing trader that help was on its way. In the spring of 1618, three English ships were despatched to Run with orders to relieve Courthope and develop trade with the rest of the islands. The crew were bullish and ready to fight, believing their force sufficient to scatter any Dutch ships sent to intercept them.
As one of the ships, the Solomon, neared the Banda Islands a cheer went up from the little force of besieged Englishmen on Run. It was a moment of great excitement and they scrambled up Run's cliffs for a better view of the vessel. She was 'some five leagues from Polaroon [Run],' wrote Courthope in his journal, 'comming from the westwards with the very last of the westerly windes'. She was a large ship and was heavily laden with hundreds of tons of rice, fish and 'six hundred jarres of arack'. With the wind blowing a stiff westerly they confidently predicted that she would make the harbour in less than an hour.
Four Dutch vessels had been despatched from Neira to monitor the Solomons progress but these were unable to reach Run due to the wind, a cause of much mirth to Courthope's men. But their jeering was brought to an abrupt halt when the wind suddenly changed direction and the sails of the Dutch ships 'were taken with an easterly'. The Hollanders were now able to give chase and the
Englishmen watched in horror as the unequal forces prepared to do battle.
'The fight was in sight of Polaroon [Run],' recorded a nervous Courthope, 'some three leagues off.' Stuck on his island prison, he could only hope that the Solomon would score an early success and send the Dutch ships scurrying back to Neira. But almost from the beginning the English found themselves at a massive disadvantage for the Solomon was so deeply laden with supplies that she was unable to use her lower tier of ordnance, dramatically reducing her ability to fight. The crew put up a valiant resistance, answering 'shot for shot all that afternoone, but our powder was naught, and could not carrie the shot home'. The Dutch, meanwhile, 'plyed their great ordnance upon us, killing three men and hurt thirteene or fourteene others'.
For almost seven hours the ships did battle, peppering each other with shot until they were 'almost board and board' and the rival soldiers were engaged in hand-to-hand combat. The English captain, Cassarian David, soon found himself within shouting distance of the Dutch commander who ordered him to take in his colours, strike his sails, and come aboard to negotiate. Perceiving his situation to be hopeless the Englishman agreed, descending into the commander's cabin for discussions.When several hours had passed and Cassarian did not return the crew assumed that he had been taken prisoner.
It was during this lull in the fighting that a party of warlike Bandanese had rowed out to the Solomon.To them, surrender was both shameful and unthinkable and the English feared that if these fighters learned that their captain was negotiating a truce they would go on the rampage, killing everyone irrespective of nationality. Muttering vaguely about a cease-fire they disarmed the Bandanese of their weapons, taking special care to relieve them of their deadly kris daggers. It was a wise precaution for when the Dutch finally came to take possession of the ship, eight Bandanese who had managed to conceal their daggers hurled themselves at the invaders. 'They played their parts excellently,' wrote one of the crew, 'for they drove the Flemings overboord, by fortie at once; some up into the foure shrouds, some one way, and some another, that they had scoured the deckes of them all. I thinke that if the Bandanese had had them upon plaine ground, they would have put the Flemmings to the sword, every man of them.' After wreaking havoc on the Dutch, the Bandanese were overpowered and all but seven
were killed.
Courthope was exasperated as he watched these events from the cliffs of Run. In a letter to the directors in London he informed their worships that rather than yielding in the disgraceful way that the Solomons captain had done he 'would have sunke downe right in the sea first'. It was a characteristically defiant attitude and doubtless Courthope meant every word. He was bitterly disappointed by his continued misfortune and speaks of'the hard fortune fallen to our ships bound thither this year.' He placed much of the blame on the authorities in Bantam who sent the ships so close to the monsoon that they invariably did not even get within sight of Run.
I much marvel you sent this year with so weak forces, you seeing they use all the means possible they can to bar us of all trade in these parts ... Therefore, if you mean the Company to have any trade with these islands, or the Moluccas, it must not be deferred any longer, but to send such forces the next westerly monsoon to nainain that we have