Van.  Her. Dispatch him; he will be a shrewd witness against us, if he returns to Europe.

Fisc. I have thought better, if you please,—­to kill him by form of law, as accessary to the English plot, which I have long been forging.

Har. Send one to seize him strait. [Exit a Messenger.] But what you said, that Towerson was guiltless of my son’s death, I easily believe, and never thought otherwise, though I dissembled.

Van Her. Nor I; but it was well done to feign that story.

1 Dutch. The true one was too foul.

2 Dutch. And afterwards to draw the English off from his concernment, to their own, I think ’twas rarely managed that.

Har. So far, ’twas well; now to proceed, for I would gladly know, whether the grounds are plausible enough of this pretended plot.

Fisc. With favour of this honourable court, give me but leave to smooth the way before you.  Some two or three nights since, (it matters not,) a Japan soldier, under captain Perez, came to a centinel upon the guard, and in familiar talk did question him about this castle, of its strength, and how he thought it might be taken; this discourse the other told me early the next morning:  I thereupon did issue private orders, to rack the Japanese, myself being present.

Har. But what’s this to the English?

Fisc. You shall hear:  I asked him, when his pains were strongest on him, if Towerson, or the English factory, had never hired him to betray the fort? he answered, (as it was true) they never had; nor was his meaning more in that discourse, than as a soldier to inform himself, and so to pass the time.

Van Her. Did he confess no more?

Fisc. You interrupt me.  I told him, I was certainly informed the English had designs upon the castle, and if he frankly would confess their plot, he should not only be released from torment, but bounteously rewarded:  Present pain and future hope, in fine, so wrought upon him, he yielded to subscribe whatever I pleased; and so he stands committed.

Har. Well contrived; a fair way made, upon this accusation, to put them all to torture.

2 Dutch. By his confession, all of them shall die, even to their general, Towerson.

Har. He stands convicted of another crime, for which he is to suffer.

Fisc. This does well to help it though:  For Towerson is here a person publicly employed from England, and if he should appeal, as sure he will, you have no power to judge him in Amboyna.

Van Her. But in regard of the late league and union betwixt the nations, how can this be answered?

1 Dutch. To torture subjects to so great a king, a pain never heard of in their happy land, will sound but ill in Europe.

Fisc. Their English laws in England have their force; and we have ours, different from theirs at home.  It is enough, they either shall confess, or we will falsify their hands to make them.  Then, for the apology, let me alone; I have it writ already to a title, of what they shall subscribe; this I will publish, and make our most unheard of cruelties to seem most just and legal.