United States or Trinidad and Tobago ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
February 21, they anchored at Amboina, where they were about to storm the Portuguese fort, when the commander capitulated.
In 1623 Koen was succeeded, as governor-general, by Pieter Carpentier, whose name is still perpetuated by the Gulf of Carpentaria on the north of Australia. At this time of transition the Governor of Amboina, Van Speult, professed to have discovered a conspiracy of the English settlers, headed by Gabriel Towerson, to make themselves masters of the Dutch fort.
Under this impression I suggested to the other members of the Board the expediency of freighting a vessel for the twofold purpose of sending supplies to the forces at Amboina, for which they were in distress, and of bringing in return as many spice-plants as could be conveniently stowed.
The English were to have half the pepper crop in Java and one-third of the spices in the Moluccas, Amboina and the Banda islands. Forts and posts were to remain in their present hands, but there was to be a joint council for defence, four members from each company, the president to be appointed alternately month by month.
This island of Amboina, so famous, or rather infamous, for the cruelties and injustice formerly committed there by the Dutch upon the English, is twelve leagues long from N. to S. being high and mountainous, with intermediate vallies, which are very fertile, but the hills are in a great measure barren. The soil of the vallies is black, and affords salt-petre.
Another expedition of thirteen ships sailed in 1604 under Steven van der Hagen, whose operations were as widespread and as successful as those of Waerwyck. Van der Hagen took possession of Molucca and built factories at Amboina, Tidor and other places in the spice-bearing islands.
These birds are said to resort, in February and March, when the nutmegs are ripe, to Banda and Amboina, where they feed on the outer rind of the nutmeg, after which they fall to the ground, quite stupified, or as it were dead drunk, when innumerable ants gather about them, and eat them up.
It is governed by a Dutch serjeant, having under him three corporals, a master gunner, and twenty European soldiers; and produces vast plenty of rice and cloves, both of which are sent to Amboina. The inhabitants are mostly fishers, and catch such abundance of fish as not only supplies themselves, but enables them also to carry a great deal to Amboina.
A little to the eastward of Amboina there are several other small islands, the most noted of which are Boangbessay and Hinomsa, only a small distance east from Amboina. These two islands are moderately high, and not above a third part so large as Amboina. They are both well fortified, and produce store of cloves.
That same day, the 28th September, I and four more of our men were sent off for Batavia in a Chinese sloop, the other five men being promised to be sent after us in a short time, but we never heard of them afterwards. We sailed westwards till we came to the island of Lancas, in lat. 5° 27' S. and by my estimation, 2° 21', or 155 miles W. from Amboina.
Word Of The Day