At Acheen Our Portuguese Prizes Were
Disposed Of, And Shared According To The Custom Of The Sea, A Sixth Part
Being Divided Among The Captors, And The Rest Carried To The Account Of
Our Employers.
There were only five left in the factory.
Many of our men
were sick, owing to their immoderate indulgence in drinking arrack.
[Footnote 177: The goitre was long ignorantly imputed in Europe to
drinking snow water; but is now well known only to affect the
inhabitants of peculiar districts, as Derbyshire in England, and the
Valais in Switzerland, and this district in Sumatra, where certain
mineral impregnations render the water unwholesome. - E.]
When at Bantam, in October 1616, there were four English ships, and five
Hollanders at Jacatra, which raised the price of pepper; and that the
more, because the Dutch boasted of having brought this year in ready
money 1,600,000 dollars, which is probably a great exaggeration to brave
our nation. Their last fleet of six ships took two or three ships of the
Portuguese, of which they made great boasts. They endeavour to depress
our nation by every manner of abuse throughout the Indies, acting
towards us in a most unfriendly and unchristian manner. Even in Bantam,
where they acknowledge our equal right, they threaten to pull our people
out of our factory by the ears, sometimes picking quarrels with them in
the streets, and even imprisoning them; and when they themselves have
caused an uproar, complaining to the king of Bantam of our unquietness,
and bribing him to take their parts.
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