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.
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