John Dryden - Delphi Poets Series

by John Dryden

  Har. Jun. O mercy, mercy, heaven![Dies.

  Fisc. Take this, then; in return. [As he is going to stab him, Isab. takes hold of his hand.

  Isab. Hold, hold; the weak may give some help.

  Tow. [Rising.] Now, sir, I am for you.

  Fisc. [Retiring.]

  Hold, sir, there is no more resistance made.

  I beg you, by the honour of your nation,

  Do not pursue my life; I tender you my sword. [Holds his sword by the point to him.

  Tow. Base beyond example of any country, but thy own!

  Isab. Kill him, sweet love, or we shall both repent it.

  Fisc. [Kneeling to her.] Divinest beauty! Abstract of all that’s excellent in woman, can you be friend to murder?

  Isab. ’Tis none to kill a villain, and a Dutchman.

  Fisc. [Kneeling to Towerson.] Noble Englishman, give me my life, unworthy of your taking! By all that is good and holy here I swear, before the governor to plead your cause; and to declare his son’s detested crime, so to secure your lives.

  Tow. Rise, take thy life, though I can scarce believe thee;

  If for a coward it be possible, become an honest man.

  Enter Harman Senior, Van Herring, Beamont, Collins, Julia, the Governors Guard.

  Fisc. [To Har.]

  Oh, sir, you come in time to rescue me;

  The greatest villain, who this day draws breath,

  Stands here before your eyes: behold your son,

  That worthy, sweet, unfortunate young man,

  Lies there, the last cold breath yet hovering

  Betwixt his trembling lips.

  Tow. Oh, monster of ingratitude!

  Har. Oh, my unfortunate old age, whose prop

  And only staff is gone, dead ere I die!

  These should have been his tears, and I have been

  That body to be mourned.

  Beam. I am so much amazed, I scarce believe my senses.

  Fisc. And will you let him live, who did this act?

  Shall murder, and of your own son,

  And such a son, go free; He lives too long,

  By this one minute which he stays behind him.

  Isab. Oh, sir, remember, in that place you hold,

  You are a common father to us all;

  We beg but justice of you; hearken first

  To my lamented story.

  Fisc. First hear me, sir.

  Tow. Thee, slave! thou livest but by the breath I gave thee.

  Didst thou but now plead on thy knees for life,

  And offer’dst to make known my innocence

  In Harman’s injuries?

  Fisc. I offered to have cleared thy innocence,

  Who basely murdered him! — But words are needless;

  Sir, you see evidence before your eyes,

  And I the witness, on my oath to heaven,

  How clear your son, how criminal this man.

  Col. Towerson could do nothing but what was noble.

  Beam. We know his native worth.

  Fisc. His worth! Behold it on the murderer’s hand;

  A robber first, he took degrees in mischief,

  And grew to what he is: Know you that diamond,

  And whose it was? See if he dares deny it.

  Tow. Sir, it was your son’s, that freely I acknowledge;

  But how I came by it —

  Har. No, it is too much, I’ll hear no more.

  Fisc. The devil of jealousy, and that of avarice, both, I believe, possest him; or your son was innocently talking with his wife, and he perhaps had found them; this I guess, but saw it not, because I came too late. I only viewed the sweet youth just expiring, and Towerson stooping down to take the ring; she kneeling by to help him: when he saw me, he would, you may be sure, have sent me after, because I was a witness of the fact. This on my soul is true.

  Tow. False as that soul, each word, each syllable;

  The ring he put upon my hand this night,

  When in this wood unknown, and near this place,

  Without my timely help he had been slain.

  Fisc. See this unlikely story!

  What enemies had he, who should assault him?

  Or is it probable that very man,

  Who actually did kill him afterwards,

  Should save his life so little time before?

  Isab. Base man, thou knowest the reason of his death;

  He had committed on my person, sir,

  An impious rape; first tied me to that tree,

  And there my husband found me, whose revenge

  Was such, as heaven and earth will justify.

  Har. I know not what heaven will, but earth shall not.

  Beam. Her story carries such a face of truth,

  Ye cannot but believe it.

  Col. The other, a malicious ill-patched lie.

  Fisc. Yes, you are proper judges of his crime,

  Who, with the rest of your accomplices,

  Your countrymen, and Towerson the chief,

  Whom we too kindly used, would have surprised

  The fort, and made us slaves; that shall be proved,

  More soon than you imagine; I found it out

  This evening.

  Tow. Sure the devil has lent thee all his stock of falsehood, and must be forced hereafter to tell truth.

  Beam. Sir, it is impossible you should believe it.

  Har. Seize them all.

  Col. You cannot be so base.

  Har. I’ll be so just, ‘till I can hear your plea

  Against this plot; which if not proved, and fully,

  You are quit; mean time, resistance is but vain.

  Tow. Provided that we may have equal hearing,

  I am content to yield, though I declare,

  You have no power to judge us.[Gives his sword.

  Beam. Barbarous, ungrateful Dutch!

  Har. See them conveyed apart to several prisons,

  Lest they combine to forge some specious lie

  In their excuse.

  Let Towerson and that woman too be parted.

  Isab. Was ever such a sad divorce made on a bridal night!

  But we before were parted, ne’er to meet.

  Farewell, farewell, my last and only love!

  Tow. Curse on my fond credulity, to think

  There could be faith or honour in the Dutch! —

  Farewell my Isabinda, and farewell,

  My much wronged countrymen! remember yet,

  That no unmanly weakness in your sufferings

  Disgrace the native honour of our isle:

  For you I mourn, grief for myself were vain;

  I have lost all, and now would lose my pain.[Exeunt.

  ACT V.

  SCENE I. — A Table set out.

  Enter Harman, Fiscal, Van Herring, and two Dutchmen: They sit. Boy, and Waiters, Guards.

  Har. My sorrow cannot be so soon digested for losing of a son I loved so well; but I consider great advantages must with some loss be bought; as this rich trade which I this day have purchased with his death: yet let me lie revenged, and I shall still live on, and eat and drink down all my griefs. Now to the matter, Fiscal.

  Fisc. Since we may freely speak among ourselves, all I have said of Towerson was most false. You were consenting, sir, as well as I, that Perez should be hired to murder him, which he refusing when he was engaged, ’tis dangerous to let him longer live.

  Van. Her. Dispatch him; he will be a shrewd witness against us, if he returns to Europe.

  Fisc. I have thought better, if you please, — to kill him by form of law, as accessary to the English plot, which I have long been forging.

  Har. Send one to seize him strait. [Exit a Messenger.] But what you said, that Towerson was guiltless of my son’s death, I easily believe, and never thought otherwise, though I dissembled.

  Van Her. Nor I; but it was well done to feign that story.

  Dutch. The true one was too foul.

  Dutch. And afterwards to draw the Engli
sh off from his concernment, to their own, I think ’twas rarely managed that.

  Har. So far, ’twas well; now to proceed, for I would gladly know, whether the grounds are plausible enough of this pretended plot.

  Fisc. With favour of this honourable court, give me but leave to smooth the way before you. Some two or three nights since, (it matters not,) a Japan soldier, under captain Perez, came to a centinel upon the guard, and in familiar talk did question him about this castle, of its strength, and how he thought it might be taken; this discourse the other told me early the next morning: I thereupon did issue private orders, to rack the Japanese, myself being present.

  Har. But what’s this to the English?

  Fisc. You shall hear: I asked him, when his pains were strongest on him, if Towerson, or the English factory, had never hired him to betray the fort? he answered, (as it was true) they never had; nor was his meaning more in that discourse, than as a soldier to inform himself, and so to pass the time.

  Van Her. Did he confess no more?

  Fisc. You interrupt me. I told him, I was certainly informed the English had designs upon the castle, and if he frankly would confess their plot, he should not only be released from torment, but bounteously rewarded: Present pain and future hope, in fine, so wrought upon him, he yielded to subscribe whatever I pleased; and so he stands committed.

  Har. Well contrived; a fair way made, upon this accusation, to put them all to torture.

  Dutch. By his confession, all of them shall die, even to their general, Towerson.

  Har. He stands convicted of another crime, for which he is to suffer.

  Fisc. This does well to help it though: For Towerson is here a person publicly employed from England, and if he should appeal, as sure he will, you have no power to judge him in Amboyna.

  Van Her. But in regard of the late league and union betwixt the nations, how can this be answered?

  Dutch. To torture subjects to so great a king, a pain never heard of in their happy land, will sound but ill in Europe.

  Fisc. Their English laws in England have their force; and we have ours, different from theirs at home. It is enough, they either shall confess, or we will falsify their hands to make them. Then, for the apology, let me alone; I have it writ already to a title, of what they shall subscribe; this I will publish, and make our most unheard of cruelties to seem most just and legal.

  Har. Then, in the name of him, who put it first into thy head to form this damned false plot, proceed we to the execution of it. And to begin; first seize we their effects, rifle their chests, their boxes, writings, books, and take of them a seeming inventory; but all to our own use. — I shall grow young with thought of this, and lose my son’s remembrance!

  Fisc. Will you not please to call the prisoners in? At least inquire what torments have extorted.

  Har. Go thou and bring us word. [Exit Fiscal.] Boy, give me some tobacco, and a stoup of wine, boy.

  Boy. I shall, sir.

  Har. And a tub to leak in, boy; when was this table without a leaking vessel?

  Van Her. That’s an omission.

  Dutch. A great omission. ’Tis a member of the table, I take it so.

  Har. Never any thing of moment was done at our council-table without a leaking tub, at least in my time; great affairs require great consultations, great consultations require great drinking, and great drinking a great leaking vessel.

  Van Her. I am even drunk with joy already, to see our godly business in this forwardness.

  Enter Fiscal.

  Har. Where are the prisoners?

  Fisc. At the door.

  Har. Bring them in; I’ll try if we can face them down by impudence, and make them to confess.

  Enter Beamont and Collins, guarded.

  You are not ignorant of our business with you: the cries of your accomplices have already reached your ears; and your own consciences, above a thousand summons, a thousand tortures, instruct you what to do. No farther juggling, nothing but plain sincerity and truth to be delivered now; a free confession will first atone for all your sins above, and may do much below to gain your pardons. Let me exhort you, therefore, be you merciful, first to yourselves and make acknowledgment of your conspiracy.

  Beam. What conspiracy?

  Fisc. Why la you, that the devil should go masked with such a seeming honest face! I warrant you know of no such thing.

  Har. Were not you, Mr Beamont, and you, Collins both accessary to the horrid plot, for the surprisal of this fort and island?

  Beam. As I shall reconcile my sins to heaven, in my last article of life, I am innocent.

  Col. And so am I.

  Har. So, you are first upon the negative.

  Beam. And will be so till death.

  Col. What plot is this you speak of?

  Fisc. Here are impudent rogues! now after confession of two Japanese, these English starts dare ask what plot it is!

  Har. Not to inform your knowledge, but that law may have its course in every circumstance, Fiscal, sum up their accusation to them.

  Fisc. You stand accused, that new-year’s day last past, there met at captain Towerson’s house, you present, and many others of your factory: There, against law and justice, and all ties of friendship, and of partnership betwixt us, you did conspire to seize upon the fort, to murder this our worthy governor; and, by the help of your plantations near, of Jacatra, Banda, and Loho, to keep it for yourselves.

  Beam. What proofs have you of this?

  Fisc. The confession of two Japanese, hired by you to attempt it.

  Beam. I hear they have been forced by torture to it.

  Har. It matters not which way the truth comes out; take heed, for their example is before you.

  Beam. Ye have no right, ye dare not torture us; we owe you no subjection.

  Fisc. That, sir, must be disputed at the Hague; in the mean time we are in possession here.

  Dutch. And we can make ourselves to be obeyed.

  Van Her. In few words, gentlemen, confess. There is a beverage ready for you else, which you will not like to swallow.

  Col. How is this?

  Har. You shall be muffled up like ladies, with an oiled cloth put underneath your chins, then water poured above; which either you must drink, or must not breathe.

  Dutch. That is one way, we have others.

  Har. Yes, we have two elements at your service, fire, as well as water; certain things called matches to be tied to your finger-ends, which are as sovereign as nutmegs to quicken your short memories.

  Beam. You are inhuman, to make your cruelty your pastime: nature made me a man, and not a whale, to swallow down a flood.

  Har. You will grow a corpulent gentleman like me; I shall love you the better for it; now you are but a spare rib.

  Fisc. These things are only offered to your choice; you may avoid your tortures, and confess.

  Col. Kill us first; for that we know is your design at last, and ’tis more mercy now.

  Beam. Be kind, and execute us while we bear the shapes of men, ere fire and water have destroyed our figures; let me go whole out of the world, I care not, and find my body when I rise again, so as I need not be ashamed of it.

  Har. ’Tis well you are merry; will you yet confess?

  Beam. Never.

  Har. Bear them away to torture.

  Van. Her. We will try your constancy.

  Beam. We will shame your cruelty; if we deserve our tortures, ’tis first for freeing such an infamous nation, that ought to have been slaves, and then for trusting them as partners, who had cast off the yoke of their lawful sovereign.

  Har. Away, I’ll hear no more. — Now who comes the next?[Exeunt the English with a Guard.

  Fisc. Towerson’s page, a ship-boy, and a woman.

  Har. Call them in.[Exit a Messenger.

  Van Her. We shall have easy work with them.

  Fisc. Not so easy as you imagine, they have endured the beverage already; all masters of their pain, no one confessing.

  Ha
r. The devil’s in these English! those brave boys would prove stout topers if they lived.

  Enter Page, a Boy, and a Woman, led as from torture.

  Come hither, ye perverse imps; they say you have endured the water torment, we will try what fire will do with you: You, sirrah, confess; were not you knowing of Towerson’s plot, against this fort and island?

  Page. I have told your hangman no, twelve times within this hour, when I was at the last gasp; and that is a time, I think, when a man should not dissemble.

  Har. A man! mark you that now; you English boys have learnt a trick of late, of growing men betimes; and doing men’s work, too, before you come to twenty.

  Van Her. Sirrah, I will try if you are a salamander and can live in the fire.

  Page. Sure you think my father got me of some Dutchwoman, and that I am but of a half-strain courage; but you shall find that I am all over English as well in fire as water.

  Boy. Well, of all religions, I do not like your Dutch.

  Fisc. No? and why, young stripling?

  Boy. Because your penance comes before confession.

  Har. Do you mock us, sirrah? To the fire with him.

  Boy. Do so; all you shall get by it is this; before I answered no; now I’ll be sullen and will talk no more.

  Har. Best cutting off these little rogues betime; if they grow men, they will have the spirit of revenge in them.

  Page. Yes, as your children have that of rebellion. Oh that I could but live to be governor here, to make your fat guts pledge me in that beverage I drunk, you Sir John Falstaff of Amsterdam!

  Boy. I have a little brother in England, that I intend to appear to when you have killed me; and if he does not promise me the death of ten Dutchmen in the next war, I’ll haunt him instead of you.

  Har. What say you, woman? Have compassion of yourself, and confess; you are of a softer sex.

  Wom. But of a courage full as manly; there is no sex in souls; would you have English wives shew less of bravery than their children do? To lie by an Englishman’s side, is enough to give a woman resolution.

  Fisc. Here is a hen of the game too, but we shall tame you in the fire.

  Wom. My innocence shall there be tried like gold, till it come out the purer. When you have burnt me all into one wound, cram gunpowder into it, and blow me up, I’ll not confess one word to shame my country.

  Har. I think we have got here the mother of the Maccabees; away with them all three. [Exeunt the English guarded.] I’ll take the pains myself to see these tortured.