“1.  To what nation the ship belongs, and its name?
   “2.  If it comes from Europe, or any other place?
   “3.  From what place it lastly departed from?
   “4.  Whereunto designed to go?
   “5.  What and how many ships of the Dutch Company
       by departure from the last shore there layed, and their
       names?
   “6.  If one or more of these ships in company with this,
       is departed for this or any other place?
   “7.  If during the voyage any particularities is happened
       or seen?
   “8.  If not any ships in sea, or the Streights of Sunda,
       have seen or hailed in, and which?
   “9.  If any other news worth of attention, at the place
       from whence the ship lastly departed, or during the voyage,
       is happened?

BATAVIA, in the Castle.  “By order of the Governor-General and the Counsellors of India, J. BRANDER BUNGL, Sec.”

Of these questions I answered only the first and the fourth; which when the officer saw, he said answers to the rest were of no consequence:  Yet he immediately added, that he must send that very paper away to Batavia, and that it would be there the next day at noon.  I have particularly related this incident, because I have been credibly informed that it is but of late years that the Dutch have taken upon them to examine the ships that pass through this Streight.[116]

[Footnote 116:  The Dutch East-India Company claimed the absolute sovereignty of the Straits of Sunda, as possessing the kingdom of Bantam, on the shore of Java, and having conquered the land of Lampon and other provinces on the opposite side.—­E.]

At ten o’clock the same morning, we weighed, with a light breeze at S.W.; but did little more than stem the current, and about two o’clock anchored again under Bantam Point, where we lay till nine; a light breeze then springing up at S.E. we weighed and stood to the eastward till ten o’clock the next morning, when the current obliged us again to anchor in twenty-two fathom, Pulababi bearing E. by S. 1/2 S. distant between three and four miles.  Having alternately weighed and anchored several times, till four in the afternoon of the 7th, we then stood to the eastward, with a very faint breeze at N.E. and passed Wapen Island, and the first island to the eastward of it; when the wind dying away, we were carried by the current between the first and second of the islands that lie to the eastward of Wapen Island, where we were obliged to anchor in thirty fathom, being very near a ledge of rocks that run out from one of the islands.  At two the next morning we weighed with the land-wind at south, and stood out clear of the shoal; but before noon were obliged to come-to again in twenty-eight fathom, near a small island among those that are called the Thousand Islands, which we did not find laid down in any chart.  Pulo Pare at this time bore E.N.E. distance between six and seven miles.