- E.]

The Macassers are a brave, industrious, and faithful people, to such as deal fairly with them; and on this account are highly esteemed in the Eastern Indies, more especially by the Dutch.

They are, however, daring, cruel, and revengeful, if once provoked. Mr Katchpole had contracted with these men to serve for three years, at the end of which period, if they pleased, they were to receive their wages and to depart: But he, though they strictly performed their part of the agreement, broke faith with them, keeping them beyond their time against their will. In addition to this great breach in morality, he added as notorious an error in politics; for, after provoking these men so egregiously by refusing to fulfil his engagement, he still confided to them the guard of his own person and the custody of the factory. This gave them ample opportunity of revenging the ill usage they had met with, and with that ferocity which is so natural to untutored barbarians. They rose in mutiny one night, and murdered Mr Katchpole, and all who were at the time along with him in the factory. A few, who happened to lodge on the outside of the fort, hearing the cries of their friends within during the massacre, fled from their beds to the sea-shore; where, by a singular interposition of Providence, they found a bark completely ready for sea, in which they embarked half naked, and put immediately to sea, just in time to escape the rage of the Macassers, who came in search of them to the shore, precisely when they had weighed anchor and pushed off to sea.

Dr Cunningham was one of the number who escaped on this occasion. Their navigation was attended with excessive difficulty, being exposed at the same time to incredible fatigue, and to the utmost extremity of hunger and thirst: But at length, after a tedious and difficult course of an hundred leagues, in the most wretched condition, they reached a small creek in the dominions of the king of Johor, where they were received with kindness.

Sec.6. Some Account of the Factory at Pulo Laut, with the Overthrow of that Factory, and of the English Trade to Borneo.

A year or two after this ruin of the factory at Pulo Condore, the Company thought fit to order the establishment of a new factory on the coast of the great island of Borneo. On the south of that vast island, there is a small isle called Pulo Laut, having an excellent harbour. The country here is but thinly peopled, and yields nothing except rice; but, as it lies near the mouth of the great rivers which come from the pepper countries in the interior; it is extremely well situated for trade. Between this island and the great island of Borneo, there is a channel about two miles wide in most places, narrower in some and broader in others, and having from seven to five fathoms water the whole way through. On the coast of this channel there are several rising grounds fit for building on, and which were therefore extremely proper for the situation of a factory, which, it may be presumed, induced those who had the direction of the Company's affairs, to make choice of this place.

One Captain Barry, who is said to have been a very ingenious gentleman, had the charge of establishing this new factory, in which he is reported to have acted with much skill and prudence. But he died before the works were completed; and the direction of the factory devolved upon Doctor Cunningham, who came to this place after the ruin of the factory at Pulo Condore. He is said to have given himself so entirely up to his studies, that he left the care of the Company's concerns too much to the people who were under him, who were unequal to the trust, and proved the ruin of the factory. Before the fort was half finished, these people began to insult the natives of the country; and, among other wanton acts of folly, they very imprudently chose to search one of the boats belonging to the king, which was carrying a female of rank down the river. This so provoked the Bornean sovereign that he determined upon the utter destruction of the English; for which purpose he collected his forces together, amounting to about three thousand resolute men, which he embarked in above an hundred proas, and sent them down to attack the factory and unfinished fort.

There happened at this time to be two ships belonging to the Company in the river, besides two merchant vessels of inconsiderable force; and as Cunningham and his people had received advice of the preparations making against them, they left their factory, taking refuge aboard the ships, thinking themselves in greater security there than ashore. When all things were in readiness for the intended assault, the native armament came down the river in the night; and, while some landed and destroyed the factory and fortifications, others attacked the ships, which were fortunately prepared for their reception, the English having made fast nettings along both sides of their ships, about two fathoms high above the gunnels, to prevent the enemy from boarding, and were in readiness to use their blunderbusses and pikes, to prevent them from forcing their way to the decks.

On seeing the approach of the proas towards the ships, the English plied their great guns, loaded with double, round, and partridge shot, and made great carnage among the Borneans, yet this did not deter them from pushing forwards and using their utmost endeavours to board. But, having got up to the gunnels, they were unable to get over the netting, and so were slaughtered with great ease by the English from the decks. Some of the assailants got in at the head doors of one of the ships and killed a few of the English on the forecastle, but were soon overpowered and slain.

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