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.
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