They Arrived At The Port Called Quinham,[59] Delivered His Majesty's Letters And Present, And Were Entertained With Kind Words And Fair Promises.

The Hollanders, seeing that we adventured to that country, would needs do the same, and were at first kindly

Entertained; but in the end, Mr Peacock and the chief Dutch merchant going ashore one day in the same boat, to receive payment from the king for broad-cloth and other commodities they had sold him, they were treacherously assailed on the water, their boat overset, and both were killed in the water with harpoons, as if they had been fishes, together with their interpreters and other attendants, who were Japanese. Mr Carwarden being aboard our junk escaped sharing in this massacre, and came away, but neither he nor the junk have ever been since heard of, so that we fear he has been cast away.

[Footnote 59: Turon is the port of Cochin-China in the present time, and Quinham is unknown in modern geography; perhaps the old name of some island or village at the port or bay of Turon. - E.]

It is commonly reported here, both among the Chinese and Japanese, that this was done by order of the king of Cochin-China in revenge against the Hollanders, who had burnt one of his towns, and had slaughtered his people most unmercifully. The origin of this quarrel was occasioned by a large quantity of false dollars, sent to Quinham by the Hollanders some years ago, and put off in payment for silks and other Chinese goods, to the great injury of the merchants of that country.

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