Upon this, a person who stood by, desired the fiscal not to put words into the mouth of the witness, but to allow him to speak for himself.  After this reproof, without waiting any answer to his former question, the fiscal asked what reward was to have been given the Japanese for their services?  Collins answered 1000 dollars each.  He was then asked, when this plot was to have been carried into execution?  But, although he made no answer to this question, not knowing on the sudden what to say, he was dismissed, glad to get away from the torture, yet certainly believing they would put him to death for his confession.

Samuel Colson was next brought in; and, for fear of the tortures that Collins had endured, whom he saw brought out in a pitiable condition, with his eyes almost starting out of their sockets, he chose rather to confess all they asked, and so was quickly dismissed, yet came out weeping and lamenting, and protesting his innocence.  John Clark was then taken in, and tortured with fire and water for two hours, in the same manner as had been done with Johnson and Thomson.[317]

[Footnote 317:  The minute description of these tortures, in Purchas, and copied in Harris, are disgusting; insomuch, that Purchas exclaims at one place, I have no heart to proceed.  They are here therefore omitted,—­E.]

Finding that all their cruelties could not force him to any consistent confession of himself, they helped him along to particular circumstances of their own contrivance, by leading questions.  Thus wearied out and overpowered, by terror of the tortures being renewed, he answered, yes, to whatever they asked, by which means they trumped up a body of evidence to this effect:—­“That Captain Towerson, on new-year’s-day last, had sworn all the English at Amboina to be secret and aiding in a plot he had devised for surprising the castle, by the aid of the Japanese, putting the governor and all the Dutch to death.”

On the 17th, William Griggs and John Fardo, with some Japanese, were brought to examination.  The Japanese were first cruelly tortured to accuse Griggs, which at last they did; and Griggs, to avoid torture, confessed whatever the fiscal was pleased to demand.  The same was next done with Fardo and other Japanese.  Fardo endured the torture for some time, but at length confessed all they pleased to ask.  That same day, John Beaumont was brought a second time to the fiscal’s chamber, when one Captain Newport, the son of a Dutchman, but born and educated in England, acted as interpreter.  Griggs was also brought in to accuse Beaumont of being present at the consultation for surprising the castle.  Beaumont denied all, with great earnestness, and many oaths; but, on enduring the torture, was constrained to confess every thing laid to his charge.