increase of price made the natives very desirous of furnishing me, so that I certainly had procured a full lading in a month, had not the Dutch overawed the natives, imprisoning them, and threatening to put them to death, keeping strict guard on all the coasts.  Most of these islands produce abundance of cloves; and those that are inhabited of any note, yield the following quantities, one year with another.  Ternate 1000 bahars, Machian 1090, Tidore 900, Bachian 300, Moteer 600, Mean 50, Batta China 35; in all 3975 bahars, or 2,633,437 1/2 English pounds, being 1175 tons, twelve cwts. three qrs. and nine and a half libs. Every third year is far more fruitful than the two former, and is therefore termed the great monsoon.

It is lamentable to see the destruction which has been brought upon these islands by civil wars, which, as I learnt while there, began and continued in the following manner:  At the discovery of these islands by the Portuguese, they found fierce war subsisting between the kings of Ternate and Tidore, to which two all the other islands were either subjected, or were confederated, with one or other of them.  The Portuguese, the better to establish themselves, took no part with either, but politically kept friends with both, and fortified themselves in the two principal islands of Ternate and Tidore, engrossing the whole trade of cloves into their own hands.  In this way they domineered till the year 1605, when the Dutch dispossessed them by force, and took possession for themselves.  Yet so weakly did they provide for defending the acquisition, that the Spaniards drove them out next year from both islands, by a force sent from the Philippine islands, took the king of Ternate prisoner, and sent him to the Philippines, and kept both Ternate and Tidore for some time in their hands.  Since then the Dutch have recovered some footing in these, islands, and, at the time of my being there, were in possession of the following forts.

On the island of Ternate they have a fort named:  Malayou, having three bulwarks or bastions, Tolouco having two bastions and a round tower, and Tacome with four bastions.  On Tidore they have a fort called Marieka, with four bastions.  On Machian, Tufasoa, the chief town of the island, having four large bastions with sixteen pieces of cannon, and inhabited by about 1000 natives:  At Nofakia, another town on that island, they have two forts or redoubts, and a third on the top of a high hill with five or six guns, which commands the road on the other side.  Likewise at Tabalola, another town in Machian, they have two forts with eight cannons, this place being very strongly situated by nature.  The natives of all these places are under their command.  Those of Nofakia are not esteemed good soldiers, and are said always to side with the strongest; but those of Tabalola, who formerly resided at Cayoa, are accounted the best soldiers in the Moluccas, being