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The crew, on landing at Desima, were placed under rigorous surveillance, which was never relaxed. Even the permanent Dutch residents received but little better treatment.
In return for these, they submitted to all sorts of indignities. They were restricted to the narrow limits of the artificially constructed island of Desima, which is only six hundred feet in length, and two hundred and forty in breadth. Here they were confined within high fences fringed with spikes.
It was an ingenious scheme on the part of the English governor of Java, which had, within a few years, been ceded to England. The independence of Holland had ceased, and the governor of Java undertook, by despatching English vessels under the Dutch flag, to secure the trade which Holland had alone enjoyed. But the Dutch director at Desima refused compliance, and the plan fell through.
Away we go, a dozen or more in a line, over the creek bridge, past Desima, which we leave on our left hand, and soon we are in the heart of the native city, and traversing what is popularly known as "curio" street. At this point we request our human horses to trot, instead of going at the mad speed usual to them, in order that we make notes of Japanese life by the way.
The island of Desima was infested with Japanese spies, whom the Dutch were required to employ and pay as secretaries and servants, while knowing their real office, If a Dutch resident aspired to occasional egress from his prison, it was necessary to petition the governor of Nagasaki for the privilege.
The monopoly of trade was theirs, but with the most degrading and humiliating conditions. They were obliged to give up their factory at Firando, and take a new station upon the small island of Desima, in the harbor of Nagasaki. To preserve even the most limited intercourse with the Japanese, they were forced to relinquish all sense of dignity and self-respect.
Immediately ahead of the anchorage is the small island of Desima, the most interesting portion of the city to Europeans.
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