In Consequence Of This Agreement, The English East India Company Established Certain Factories, For Managing Their Share Of This Trade, Some At The Moluccas, Some At Banda, And Others At Amboina.

The island of Amboina, near Ceram, is about forty leagues in circuit, and gives its name also to some other small adjacent isles.

This island produces cloves, for the purpose of procuring which valuable spice, the English had five several factories, the head and rendezvous of all being at the town of Amboina, in which at the first, Mr George Muschamp was chief factor, who was succeeded by Mr Gabriel Towerson; having authority over the subordinate factories of Hitto and Larica on the same island, and at Loho and Cambello on a point of the neighbouring island of Ceram. On the island of Amboina and the point of Ceram, the Hollanders have four forts, the chief of all being at the town of Amboina, which is very strong, having four bastions or bulwarks, on each of which there are six great cannons, most of them brass. One side of this castle is washed by the sea, and the other is protected on the land side by a very deep ditch, four or five fathoms broad, always filled by the sea. The garrison of this castle consists of about 200 Dutch soldiers, and one company of free burghers; besides which there are three or four hundred mardykers, by which name the free natives are known, who reside in the town, and are always ready to serve in the castle at an hour's warning. There are likewise, for the most part, several good Dutch ships in the roads, both for the protection of this place by sea, and for the purposes of trade, as this is the central rendezvous of trade for the Banda islands, as well as for Amboina.

Enter page number Go  Previous Next
Page 874 of 910
Words from 237495 to 237803 of 247546