As we entered the harbour of Amboina, we met two Dutch ships coming out, laden with cloves and bound for Batavia.  The captain of one of these came on board our bark, desiring to know whence we came and whither we were bound, and required to have a journal of our voyage, promising to return it when he again met us at Batavia.  We gave him the best answers we could to all his questions, and the agent of our owners gave him a succinct relation of our voyage, which was of happy consequence to us, as to that we afterwards owed our preservation as will appear in the sequel.  We stood into the harbour that night, and next morning, which, according to our account, was Tuesday, but with the Dutch Wednesday, two Dutch orambies, as they call the vessels used at that place, came on board us, each of which was paddled by forty men.  In these vessels came the fiscal and several Dutch gentlemen, with eighty soldiers, who immediately took possession of our bark.  They also went below and sealed up all our chests, after which the two orambies towed us farther into the harbour, so that by noon we were up as high as the town of Amboina, where they moored our bark in the ordinary anchorage.

We continued on board till the 31st, two days, not knowing how they meant to dispose of us; in which time they would not supply us with any victuals, though we offered a crown a pound for beef, pork, or bread.  In the evening of this day they took us all on shore, lodging us in two rooms near the Stadt-house, our bark, with all our money and goods, being taken from us, except what we happened to have about our persons, and soon after our vessel and goods were sold by auction.  We were fed with bad meat, which our stomachs could ill digest, being very weak with having been so long on short allowance, and if we desired to have better we had to buy it with our own money.  Several of us had fortunately some money about us, and as long as that lasted we purchased provisions from our keeper.  For a Spanish dollar, which was worth five shillings and a penny, he would only give us five Dutch skellings, or the value of about two and six-pence; and even for this he gave us no more victuals than we could have bought for five-pence, if we had been at liberty to go into the town; so that, instead of five shillings for the Spanish dollar, we in reality had only five-pence.  During my leisure, I had many opportunities of enquiring into the condition of Amboina, by which I was enabled to draw up a pretty large account of the island and its inhabitants, which I flatter myself will be acceptable to the public, as the Dutch are careful to prevent any accounts of this place from being published.