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Koen thereupon fell upon the English and destroyed and burnt their factory, and finding that there was a strong English fleet under Sir Thomas Dale in the neighbourhood, he sailed to the Moluccas in search of reinforcements, leaving Pieter van der Broeck in command at the factory.
Koen was planning to follow up his success by driving the English likewise from the Moluccas, when he heard that the home government had concluded a treaty which tied his hands. The position in the Moluccas had for some years been one of continual bickering and strife; the chief scene being in the little group known as the Banda islands.
So we can imagine him following Greene in his retreat across the State, taking part in the battle of Guilford Courthouse, and possibly present when the proud Cornwallis was forced to surrender at Yorktown. When the struggle at last had ended, John Koen returned to his home.
The quantity of spices grown was carefully regulated, suitable spots being selected, and the trees elsewhere destroyed. Thus cloves were specially cultivated at Amboina; nutmegs in the Banda islands. Into this strictly guarded monopoly, from which the English had been expelled by the energy of Koen, they were now by the new treaty to be admitted to a share.
On our left we had Commandant Kemp with the Krugersdorpers; on the right Field-Cornet Koen Brits. The British tried alternately to get through between one of my neighbours and myself, but we succeeded, notwithstanding their fierce onslaught, in turning them back each time. All we could do, however, was to hold our own till dark.
According to the fireside tales told by Colonel Koen to the household in the old Koen homestead, this young soldier, then only twenty years old, was with Gates' army, that, under the valiant leadership of Morgan and Arnold, won for the newly born nation the great victory of Saratoga; and the winter of that same year '77 we find him sharing with Washington's army the trials and privations of the days of suffering at Valley Forge.
The result was the same as at the other meetings, and General Froneman, Commandants F. Cronje and J.J. Koen were chosen to represent the commandos. From there I went to Dewetsdorp, where I met, on the 5th of May, General George Brand's commandos. Mr. C. Smith acted as chairman, and Mr.
Here John Paterson Koen, President of the Dutch East India Company, arrived on the 31st of October; but instead of the friendly reception the voyagers expected he would offer, to their bitter grief he the next day sequestered the Unity and her cargo, declaring that she was forfeited to the East India Company for illegally sailing within the bounds of their charter.
Among the volunteers who were hastening to the scene of action was John Koen, of Pasquotank, a boy in years, but a man in purpose and resolution.
Here again the British were defeated, Colonel Moultrie's Palmetto fortifications proving an effective defense to the city by the sea, and Thompson's South Carolinians and North Carolinians bravely repelling the British land troops. Here Koen fought by the side of the soldiers of North Carolina, and here, possibly, he was an eye witness of the brave deed by which Sergeant Jasper won undying fame.
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