Yet So Weakly Did They Provide For Defending
The Acquisition, That The Spaniards Drove Them Out Next Year From Both
Islands, by a force sent from the Philippine islands, took the king of
Ternate prisoner, and sent him to the
Philippines, and kept both Ternate
and Tidore for some time in their hands. Since then the Dutch have
recovered some footing in these, islands, and, at the time of my being
there, were in possession of the following forts.
On the island of Ternate they have a fort named: Malayou, having three
bulwarks or bastions, Tolouco having two bastions and a round tower,
and Tacome with four bastions. On Tidore they have a fort called
Marieka, with four bastions. On Machian, Tufasoa, the chief town of
the island, having four large bastions with sixteen pieces of cannon,
and inhabited by about 1000 natives: At Nofakia, another town on that
island, they have two forts or redoubts, and a third on the top of a
high hill with five or six guns, which commands the road on the other
side. Likewise at Tabalola, another town in Machian, they have two
forts with eight cannons, this place being very strongly situated by
nature. The natives of all these places are under their command. Those
of Nofakia are not esteemed good soldiers, and are said always to side
with the strongest; but those of Tabalola, who formerly resided at
Cayoa, are accounted the best soldiers in the Moluccas, being deadly
enemies to the Portuguese and Spaniards, and as weary now of the Dutch
dominion.
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