Nathaniel's nutmeg

by Giles Milton

  The leading orang-kayas now visited Coen aboard his vessel, bringing with them gifts of gold and copper and offering to sue for peace. Coen's terms were harsh; they were to destroy all fortifications, hand in all weapons, vow never again to resist the Dutch, and present their sons as hostages. They were also ordered to sell exclusively to the Dutch East India Company and recognise Dutch sovereignty. This last clause was significant for any future uprising would not be considered as an act of war but an act of treason, and treason in Holland was punishable by death. The chieftains duly signed the agreement - they had little alternative — but Coen was in no doubt that they would renege on it. When they did he vowed to crush them completely.

  Robert Randall had wisely kept a low profile throughout the invasion. He and his colleagues had locked themselves into the English warehouse and 'kept themselves within doores' until the island had fallen. His neutrality did little to endear him to the Dutch soldiers who 'sacked our house, tooke away all our goods, murthered three of our Chinese servants, bound the rest (as well English as Chinezes) hand and foote, and threatned them to cut their throats'. The Japanese mercenaries took particular delight in tormenting their prisoners: having decapitated the Chinese, they rolled the severed heads around the feet of the English captives, laughing at the panic they were causing. Then, 'with their weapons readie drawne out, [they] did put a halter on our principall factor's necke, drawing up his head, and stretching out his necke, readie to put him to death'. But they stopped short of executing Randall. Instead, 'as they were bound hand and foot (as foresaid) [they] tumbled them downe over the rocks like dogges, and like to have broken their neckes, and thus bound, carried them aboord their shippes, and kept them prisoners in irons.' Randall was convinced that the Dutch had ordered his execution but that the Japanese had failed to understand the command.

  Coen was correct in his belief that the Bandanese had no intention of honouring his treaty. The weapons they handed in were rusty and quite useless whilst the fortifications they demolished were soon replaced by new battlements. Worse still, most of the native population had fled into Great Banda's mountainous hinterland where they staged irregular attacks on stray Dutch troops. On one occasion they ambushed a large group of soldiers, killing nine and leaving twenty-five others with serious injuries.

  Coen still had forty-five orang-kayas aboard his ship and these were now interrogated. After a judicious application of burning irons they confessed that the Bandanese never had any intention of abiding by the terms of the surrender and that they planned to launch a counter-offensive against the Dutch within a few weeks. On hearing this the Dutch council condemned the hostages to death - an execution that left at least one Dutch eyewitness horrified and disgusted:

  The forty-four prisoners [one had committed suicide] were brought within the castle, the eight foremost orang-kaya — those, who it was said had 'belled the cat' — being kept apart, the others being herded together like sheep. A round enclosure was built of bamboo just outside the castle, and into it were brought the prisoners, well bound with cords and surrounded by guards. Their sentence was read out to them for having conspired against the life of the Heer Generael and having broken the terms of the peace. Before the reading of the sentence it was forbidden on pain of death for anyone else to enter the enclosure except only fathers and mothers.

  The condemned victims being brought within the enclosure, six Japanese soliders were also ordered inside, and with their sharp swords they beheaded and quartered the eight chief orang-kaya and then beheaded and quartered the thirty-six others. This execution was awful to see. The orang-kaya died silently without uttering any sound except that one of them, speaking in the Dutch tongue, said, 'Sirs, have you then no mercy' but indeed nothing availed.

  All that happened was so dreadful as to leave us stunned. The heads and quarters of those who had been executed were impaled upon bamboos and so displayed.Thus did it happen: God knows who is right.

  All of us, as professing Christians, were filled with dismay at the way this affair was brought to a conclusion, and we took no pleasure in such dealings.

  Coen's conscience was untroubled by the deaths of so many Bandanese: 'They are indolent people,' he wrote, 'of whom little good can be expected.' But the directors in Amsterdam found his brutality distasteful and wrote: 'We had wished that it could have been accomplished by more moderate means.' Coen could rightly feel indignant at such criticism since it was the directors themselves who had originally recommended that 'the Bandanese should be overpowered, the chiefs exterminated and chased away, and the land repopulated.'

  Repopulation had long been on Coen's mind and he now prepared the way by rounding up whole com­munities of Bandanese and shipping them to Batavia to be sold as slaves. The total number transported from the islands remains unknown, but one ship alone was registered as carrying nearly nine hundred people of whom a quarter died en route.

  The conquest of the Banda Islands was almost complete. The natives who remained were totally at Coen's mercy for their leaders were dead and their defences in ruins. The English, too, were no longer a threat. All who had survived the siege of Run were now either imprisoned on Ai or in chains on board one or other of the Dutch ships. With little possibility of further trouble, Coen now set sail for Batavia and Holland. On the way he took the opportunity to stop at Amboyna and warn the governor, Herman van Speult, to be on the look-out for any suspicious activities. He was convinced that the English would try to strike back at the Dutch, either in Amboyna or in the Banda Islands and told van Speult to nip any conspiracy in the bud. 'We hope to direct things according to your orders,' replied van Speult, 'and if we hear of any conspiracies ... we shall with your sanction do justice to them without delay.'

  Carrying out Coen's command to the letter, van Speult employed a large network of agents to inform him of any suspicious activity in town. The events that followed, which would become known across Europe as the Massacre of Amboyna, destroyed any hope that England might have had of recovering ground in the Spice Islands. They also brought England and Holland to the brink of war.

  The island of Amboyna was of great importance to the Dutch, both strategically and in terms of the spices it produced. Not only was it the principal port for ships setting sail for the Banda Islands, it was also rich in cloves with much of its 280 square miles given over to clove plantations. 'Amboyna sitteth as Queene between the lies of Banda and the Molucas,' wrote Captain Humphrey Fitzherbert in his Pithy Description of the Chiefe Hands of Banda and Moluccas. 'Shee is beautfied with the fruits of severall factories and clearly beloved of the Dutch.' Coen had chosen the town of Amboyna as his principal headquarters in the Spice Islands and ordered the building of a 'very stronge castle' from which he could keep an eye on all shipping heading towards the Banda Islands.

  One side of Amboyna Castle was washed by the sea while the rest of the building was divided from the town by a moat five fathoms wide which was filled with sea water. The walls and ramparts were strongly fortified with each corner boasting a tower upon which were mounted 'six great pieces of ordnance'. The garrison comprised two hundred Dutch soldiers and a company of free burghers. In addition there were four hundred mardikers, or free natives, who could be summoned to defend the castle at a moment's notice. In the harbour eight Dutch vessels lay at anchor as a further line of defence.

  That the English could have launched any sustained campaign against the Dutch is most unlikely. By the time Coen sailed for Amsterdam the small band of Englishmen still living in the East Indies were struggling to make ends meet. They received little support from London and the factories they guarded were for the most part broken and half derelict. All were on the brink of insolvency and had virtually abandoned the trade in spices. Indeed the question of closing down these factories had been discussed in the winter of 1622 and the final decision postponed only when it was agreed that advice was needed from London.

  The small English factory on Amboyna was in the principal town, also c
alled Amboyna. Here there were a dozen or so men. On the same island, at the villages of Hitu and Larica, resided a handful of other factors bringing the total number of Englishmen to eighteen — a motley band of merchants, sailors, a tailor and a barber who doubled as a surgeon. Between them, these men could muster a total arsenal of three swords and two muskets. Their chief factor was Gabriel Towerson, a veteran merchant who had married William Hawkins' widow, the regal Armenian lady, and chosen to settle in the East. He was a formidable survivor who had outlived all of his contemporaries by many years, and his letters reveal that he was quick to adapt to unfamiliar surroundings and had a shrewd understanding of eastern customs. He was indolent yet reliable, fond of pomp yet intensely practical. When he pitched up at Ahmedabad in India, the new English ambassador Sir Thomas Roe complained that Towerson 'is here arrived with many servants, a trumpet, and more show than I use' - a clear sign that Towerson knew how to win influence at the Moghul court. He held the Dutch in deep distrust, of that there can be no doubt, but he bore no malice against the Dutch governor of Amboyna, Herman van Speult, who had helped him to secure lodgings for the English factors. Indeed even as Van Speult was worrying himself about conspiracies, the Englishman was writing to his superiors in Bantam asking that they send a letter of thanks to the Dutch governor 'together with some beer or a case of strong waters, which will be acceptable to him'. Towerson and his men were frequent guests at the castle and had been given virtually free access to the place, coming and going as they pleased. Towerson himself often dined with the Dutch governor and always came away charmed by his 'courtesies' and 'love'.

  He would soon learn how hollow those courtesies were to prove. On the night of 10 February 1623, a Dutch sentinel patrolling the walls of the castle stumbled across one of the Japanese mercenaries regularly employed by the castle authorities. There were about thirty Japanese serving the castle but they were looked upon with suspicion by the regular garrison and, for this reason, they were lodged in a house in the town. The sentinel grew suspicious of the line of questioning pursued by the Japanese and at the end of his watch declared to his colleagues that there was a spy staking out the castle. This news soon reached the ears of the governor who arrested the Japanese and questioned him more closely. The man admitted that he had asked questions concerning the strength of the castle but said they were prompted by mere curiosity and 'without any malicious intentions'. It was a common practice among soldiers, he said, to learn the strength of a watch 'so that they might know how many hours they might stand'.

  Such a reply would have satisfied most men, but van Speult confessed himself to be totally unconvinced by this answer and ordered the man to be tortured. He 'endured pretty long', according to the official Dutch report, but eventually the torture had the desired effect and the poor man 'confessed' that the Japanese had organised a plot to seize the castle by force. That such a plot existed was unbelievable, preposterous even, but the Dutch were so terrified by what they heard that the rest of the Japanese were arrested and similarly tortured. All this time 'the English men went to and from the castle upon their businesse, saw the prisoners, heard of their tortures and of the crime laid to their charge.' After fifty-six hours the Dutch interrogators got the answer they had been looking for all along. The Japanese, mangled and burned, confessed that they were conspiring together with the English and that it was Towerson and his men who had instigated the plot to storm the castle.

  There was at this time an English surgeon called Abel Price in solitary confinement in the castle dungeon. Price was a drunkard who had got himself into trouble by threatening to set a Dutchman's house on fire after a particularly debauched evening. It was now decided to bring Price to the torture chamber to see what he knew about the conspiracy. It was dawn when he was brought to face the fiscal, the Dutch legal official, and his head was still swimming with drink. Told of the Japanese confessions and shown their wounds, the Dutch inquisitors scarcely had to heat the torture irons before Price confessed 'whatever they asked him'. In fact, they asked him very little; all they required was for him to agree to their version of events. Price duly obliged, confessing, according to the Dutch records, that 'on New Yeares Day, Captain Towerson had called them together, viz. the English merchants and the other officers, and first had had them take their oathe of secrecy and faithfulness on their Bible. After this he pointed out to them that their nation was greatly troubled by us and treated unjustly, and was very little respected; for which he thought to revenge himself. If they would helpe him and assist him faithfully, he knew how to render himself master of the castle, to which some of them had objections, saying their power was too small. On which the said Captain Towerson replied that he had already persuaded the Japanese and others and they were willing to assist him. He would not (he said) have want of people for all of them were willing.'

  Price went on to give details of the attack. The Japanese, he said, were to be the first into the castle and it was their job to murder the guard and governor. Once this was accomplished the rest of the men would storm the gates and murder all the Dutchmen who refused to capitulate. The money and merchandise would then be divided among the victors.

  'I was extremely surprised when I heard of this conspiracy,' said van Speult when told of the confession, and well he might have been for the English were in no position to capture a heavily fortified castle. Even if they had incited a rebellion throughout Amboyna, with just three swords and two muskets such a plan would certainly have failed, while to attempt such an attack without an escape ship waiting off-shore would have been little short of suicide. But Coen had warned van Speult that this was exactly the sort of conspiracy to expect and the governor decided it was his duty to investigate the matter more closely.

  On the pretext of wishing to discuss some important business matters he sent word to the English house asking that they come to the castle immediately. All answered the summons save one who was left to guard the house. No sooner had they been brought to van Speult than they were accused of conspiracy and told they would be held as prisoners 'until further notice'.Towerson was locked inside the English factory with a guard of Dutch soldiers while Emanuel Thomson was kept in the castle. The rest of the men, John Beomont, Edward Collings, William Webber, Ephraim Ramsey, Timothy Johnson, John Fardo and Robert Brown, were manacled together and cast into confinement aboard a Dutch vessel at anchor. Afterwards Samuel Coulson, John Clarke and George Sharrocks who lived at Hitu, and William Griggs and John Sadler, who were at Larica, were brought to Amboyna. Lastly, John Powle, John Wetherall and Thomas Ladbrook, who were based at Cambello, were arrested and imprisoned. The English house was then ransacked and all the merchandise seized, along with chests, boxes, books and letters.

  The men were still oblivious to the charges laid against them and faced their imprisonment with little anxiety. They had always maintained good relations with van Speult and felt sure that the misunderstanding would soon be clarified and they would be set free. In this they were mistaken, for even before the last prisoners had arrived from Cambello the first tortures were under way.

  An account of the proceedings was published in a 1624 pamphlet entitled A True Relation of the Unjust, Cruel and Barbarous Proceedings against the English at Amboyna. With no detail of the tortures left to the imagination, this grisly account became a bestseller in England and ran into dozens of editions, with reprints still being made forty years after the event. Such was its effect on the English public that many clamoured for war against the Dutch. Even in Holland the account caused a stir and the States General professed itself horrified by its details.

  John Beomont and Timothy Johnson were the first to be called before the fiscal. While Johnson was led into the torture chamber, the trembling Beomont was left standing outside, guarded by soldiers. This refinement of cruelty allowed him to hear his friend being tortured before being cast into the chamber himself. He did not have to wait long before the fiscal set to work upon Johnson. Beomont heard him 'cry out very pi
tifully, then to bee quiet for a little while, and then loud again'. After a 'taste of the torture,' Johnson was released for a moment while Abel Price was wheeled in and forced to accuse him. 'But Johnson not yet confessing anything,' runs the report, 'Price was quickly carried out and Johnson brought again to the torture where Beomont heard him sometime cry aloud, then quiet again, then roare afresh. At last, after he had been an houre in this second examination, hee was brought forth wailing and lamenting, all wet, and cruelly burnt in diverse parts of his body.' He was thrown into a corner 'with a soldier to watch him that he should speak with nobody'.

  Next into the chamber was Emanuel Thomson. At fifty- one years old he was an old man but his age did nothing to save him from the hideous interrogation. For more than one and a half hours he endured the torture, although he was heard 'to roare most lamentably and many times'.