when they actually meant the Hollanders; so that, fearing some of our men might be stabbed instead of them, we endeavoured to fall upon some plan to make ourselves be distinguished from them.  And as the 17th of November drew nigh, which we still held as the coronation-day of queen Elizabeth, knowing no better, we dressed ourselves in new silk garments, and made us scarfs and hat-bands of red and white taffeta, the colours of our country, and a banner of St George, being white with a red cross in the middle.  We, the factors, distinguished ourselves from our men, by edging our scarfs with a deep gold fringe.

When the day arrived, we set up our banner on the top of our house, and, with our drum and fire-arms, marched up and down the yard of our house; being but fourteen in number, we could only cast ourselves in rings and esses in single file, and so plied our shot.  Hearing our firing, the sabander, and some others of the chief people of the land, came to see us, and enquired the cause of our rejoicing; when we told them that our queen was crowned on that day forty-seven years ago, for which reason all Englishmen, in whatever country they might then happen to be, were in use to shew their joy on that day.  The sabander commended us mightily, for shewing our reverence to our sovereign at so great a distance from our country.  Some of the others asked, how it happened that the Englishmen at the other house or factory did not do so likewise; on which we told them that they were not English but Hollanders, having no king, and their land being ruled only by governors, being of a country near England, but speaking quite a different language.

The multitude greatly admired to see so few of us discharge so many shots, for the Javans and Chinese are very inexpert in the use of fire-arms.  In the afternoon, I made our people walk out into the town and market-place, that the people might see their scarfs and hat-bands, making a shew that the like had never been seen there before, and that the natives might for the future know them from the Hollanders; and many times the children ran after us in the streets, crying out, Orang Engrees bayk, Orang Hollanda jahad:  The Englishmen are good, the Hollanders are bad.

The 6th December two Dutch ships came in, that had taken a rich Portuguese carak near Macao, by which they got great plunder, and were enabled so to bribe the regent, that he began to listen to their desire of being permitted to build a handsome house.  About this time the regent sent for me to lend him 2000 pieces of eight, or at least 1000; but I put him off with excuses, saying we had been left there with goods, not money, that the natives owed us much which we could not get in, and that we were under the necessity of purchasing pepper to load our ships, which we were expecting to arrive daily.