We wondered how this fire had come, suspecting the Portuguese had hired some Malays to do it:  But a Chinese bricklayer, who wrought at the Dutch house, told a Hollander next morning, who had been long in the country, that it was done by the Chinese brewer and his accomplices, who were now fled, and if we looked well in the room we should find how it had been done.  The Dutchman told this to an English surgeon, desiring him to come and tell us, while he, the Dutchman, being perfect in the native language, would go and enquire after the incendiaries.  The surgeon came to me, and desired to see the room which had been on fire; on going into which with a candle, he presently discovered a little round hole, burnt quite through one of the planks of the floor, and putting down a long stick, we could feel no bottom.  I then called for an axe, with which we wrenched up the plank as softly as possible, under which was a hole through which the largest trunk or pack in our warehouse might have gone down.  I immediately took three of our men armed, and went to the house whence the mine came.  Leaving one at the door, with orders to let no person out, I went into the house with the other two of my men, where we found three men in one of the rooms.  There were two more in another room, who immediately fled on hearing us, by means of a back-door which we did not know of.  After a few blows, we made the three men prisoners, and brought them away.  One was an inhabitant of the brewer’s house, but we could prove nothing against the others, yet we laid all three in irons.  I immediately sent Mr Towerson to the regent, to give him an account of the matter, and to desire the villains might be sought out and punished.  He promised this should be done, but was very slack in performance.  The Dutch merchants, hearing we had taken some of the incendiaries, and fearing the Chinese might rise against us, came very kindly to us armed, and swore they would live and die in our quarrel.

After laying out such of our goods to dry as had been wetted in extinguishing the fire, we examined the person who dwelt with the brewer, who told us the names of six who were fled, but would not confess that he knew any thing about the mine, or setting our warehouse on fire.  Then threatening him with a hot iron, but not touching him, he confessed the whole affair, and that he was concerned in it, saying, that the two out-houses were built expressly for the purpose, though put to other uses to avoid suspicion.  I sent him next morning to execution; and as he went out at our gate, the Javans reviled him, to which he answered, that the English were rich and the Chinese poor, therefore why should not they steal if they could from the English?