Yet It Seems Proper, Occasionally At Least, In The
Introductions To Leading Voyages, Like The Present, To Give Some Short
Historical notices of the subject, for the materials of which we are
chiefly, if not solely, indebted to the Annals
Of the Company, a work of
meritorious and laborious research, already several times referred to.
Under the difficulties which had long attended the exertions of the
English to acquire a share in this peculiarly called spice trade, the
agent and commercial council of the English company at Bantam, gave
authority to the commanders of the Swan and Defence to endeavour to
obtain from the native chiefs of the islands of Puloroon and Puloway, a
surrender of these islands to the king of England, with the stipulation
of paying annually as a quit-rent, a fruit-bearing branch of the nutmeg
tree; yet stipulating that these islanders were to continue entirely
under the guidance of their own laws and customs, providing only that
they should engage to sell their spices exclusively to the agents of the
English company, who were, in return, to supply them with provisions and
Hindoostan manufactures at a fair price, in exchange for their peculiar
productions, nutmegs and mace. They were likewise authorised, if they
procured the consent of the natives, to establish fortified stations, or
factories, at Puloroon, Puloway. Pulo-Lantore, and Rosinging, or
Rosengin.[255] The views of the Bantam factory on this occasion seem to
have been generally judicious, as to the measure they now authorised,
but exceedingly ill judged in attempting to execute so very important a
purpose with a force entirely inadequate to that with which it had to
contend.
[Footnote 255: An. of E.I. Co. I. 187.]
The Dutch had expelled the Portuguese, at that time the subjects of
their tyrannical oppressors, the Spaniards, from a great portion of the
spice islands, in which warlike measure, and its consequences, they had
always to support a considerable force, both naval and military, in
these seas, and in various forts upon these islands; and besides, that
they felt their preponderance from these circumstances, and used it very
naturally for their own exclusive benefit, they alleged, and with no
small appearance of equity, that the English had no right to enjoy the
advantages of a trade, which they, the Dutch, had conquered from the
Portuguese and Spaniards. This opposition of interests proceeded in the
sequel to great extremities, in which the greatly superior power of the
Hollanders in these seas, enabled them effectually to oppress the
English, in what are peculiarly called the spice islands, and even to
expel them from all participation in that trade, as will appear in some
of the subsequent sections of this chapter.
It would be not only premature in this place, but incompatible with the
nature of our work, which is intended as a Collection of Voyages and
Travels, to attempt giving a connected history of these dissensions
between the Dutch and English in Eastern India, which will be found
detailed in the Annals of the English Company.
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