* * * * *

In the Annals of the East India Company,[314] the English are said on this occasion to have received a proportion of the plunder acquired at Ormus, and a grant of the moiety of the customs at Gambroon, which place, in the sequel, became the principal station of their trade with Persia and other places in the Persian gulf.  The treaty made in 1615 by Mr Connock was also renewed, and an additional phirmaund granted by the Sophi, allowing them to purchase whatever quantity of Persian silks they might think proper, in any part of his dominions, with the privilege of bringing their goods from Gambroon to Ispahan free of duties.

[Footnote 314:  Vol.  I. p. 236.  The historiographer makes, however, a small mistake, naming Ruy Frere de Andrada as chief commander of the Portuguese at Ormus, who only commanded in a subordinate fortress at Kismis.—­E.]

In consequence of the war of Ormus, a claim was set up in 1624 by the crown and the Duke of Buckingham, as lord high admiral of England, by which the Company was demanded to pay a proportion of the prize-money, which their ships were supposed to have obtained in the seas bordering on the countries within the limits of their exclusive charter.  In order to substantiate these claims, Captains Weddell, Blithe, Clevenger, Beversham, and other officers of the Company’s ships were examined, and particularly those who had been employed against Ormus.  According to their statements, it appeared that the amount of this prize-money was calculated at L100,000 and 240,000 rials of eight, but without taking into view the charges and losses incurred by the Company on this occasion, and by their ships being called off from commercial engagements, to act as ships of war for the protection of their trade against the Portuguese, and in the assistance of the government of Persia, by which they had been compelled, either to engage in this war, or to relinquish a trade in which they had expended large sums, together with the loss of all their goods then in Persia.  At last the Company was obliged to compound, by payment of L10,000 to the Duke of Buckingham in discharge of his claim, and received an order from the secretary of state, Sir Edward Conway, to pay a similar sum also to the crown.—­E.

SECTION XIV.

ACCOUNT OF THE MASSACRE OF AMBOINA, IN 1623.[315]

In the preceding sections of this chapter, the early commercial voyages of the English East India Company have been detailed; and it is now proposed to conclude this part of our arrangement, by a brief narrative of the unjustifiable conduct of the Dutch at Amboina, in cruelly torturing and executing several Englishmen and others on false pretences of a conspiracy, but the real purpose of which was to appropriate to themselves the entire trade of the spice islands, Amboina, Banda, and the Moluccas.  They effectually succeeded in this nefarious attempt, and preserved that rich, but ill-got source of wealth, for almost two hundred years; till recently expelled from thence, and from every other commercial or colonial possession in Asia, Africa, and America.  A just retribution for submitting to, or seconding rather, the revolutionary phrenzy of French democracy; for which they now deservedly suffer, under the iron sceptre of the modern Atilla.