The English Factory At Chusan Was Broken Up In The Year 1702, So That Dr
Cunningham Had Very Little Time Allowed Him For Making His Proposed
Observations Respecting China.
From this place he removed to another new
settlement at Pulo Condore, in a small cluster of four or
Five
islands, about fifteen leagues south of the west channel of the river of
Camboja, usually called the Japanese river.[335] I am unable to say what
were the advantages proposed from this factory; but, from the memoirs I
have seen on the subject, this place seems to have been very ill chosen,
and much worse managed. The person who had at this time the management
and direction of the affairs belonging to the East India Company in this
distant part of the world, was one Mr Katchpole, who, according to the
usual custom of the Europeans in eastern India at this period, took into
the service a certain number of Macassers or native soldiers, by whose
assistance he soon constructed a small fort for the protection of the
factory. So far as I can learn, the most indispensable necessaries of
life, water, wood, and fish, were all that these islands ever afforded.
[Footnote 334: This and the subsequent subdivision of the section are
related historically by Harris. - E.]
[Footnote 335: Pulo Condore is in lat. 8 deg. 45' N. long. 106 deg. 5' E. and
the object of a factory at this place was evidently to endeavour to
secure a portion of the trade of China, from which the English at this
time were excluded by the arts of the Portuguese at Macao, as we learn
from the Annals; as also to combine some trade with Siam, Camboja,
Tsiompa, Cochin-China, and Tonquin. - 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.
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