Indian Antiquary Vol 48

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarkar
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 186

182
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[OCTOBER, 1919
However the Commandant of our squadron having armed some sloops and supplied them with a quantity of fireworks, they were sent against the Chinese junks to try to burn them. But the number of the junks was so great and they were so well handled that they surrounded the sloops, took one of them and also two boats and made their crews prisoners. Further the Chinese, holding in their hands great pieces of sailoloth, in which they caught the grenades, immediately threw them back into our ships where they fell wounding our people, who were forced to retire with the loss of three hundred and eighty men, not counting the wounded. The enemy out off the noses, the ears and the privy parts of the dead who remained in their hands and threw them into the sea with shouts of derision.
After so many disgraces it is not surprising that the besieged lost courage. Heaven, the Elements, the Air, the Winds, the Currents, the Earth, all declared against them, all favoured their enemies. Up to this time the besieged had been able to communicato freely with the ships. The enemy now tried to prevent this. To frustrate their design the Governor caused a small wooden redoubt to be erected, which by its fire caused great annoyance to those of them who wished to establish themselves between the Fort and the ships. Besides this the besieged turned one of their vessels into a fireship without anything appearing outside to show what they had done. The Chinese advancing to fight and take it, the Dutch abandoned it and fled in a pretended panic. When the enemy had carried it off it blew up in the middle of their junks and destroyed a great number of their people. On the other hand their canron pierced througb and broke down the redoubt in several places.
The besieged might still have maintained themselves and forced the Chinese to raise the siege, if a treacberous sergeant, named Hens Jurgen, Radis) with some others whom he had debauched, bad pot deserted and reported to the enemy the condition of the place. Three Dutch ships which had gone to the Pescadores to try to get cattle and fish for the sick, were out off by the enemy and the greater part of their crews killod. Ten of them, whom they caught in the water or on the shore, had their noses and ears and right hands out off and fastened round their necks, in which condition they were seat back as a final insult to our Nation.
Whilst these things were happening, the yacht Gravelande went to Quelang and took up the Factor Nicolas Loopius, Maro Masius Pastor and three married Dutch ladies, fifteen inhabitants of that place, sixteen children, twenty eight slaves, &c., in all 170 persons, as the place was defenceless and exposed to the insults of the Chinese. All these people were carried to Japan and landed in the little island of Diana (Deshima).
The Dutch ladies were regarded by the Japanese with extreme curiosity for they had never seen any before, and they treated them very civilly. In the end they were brought to Batavia, whence the widow of the Sieur N. Lænius, who had married again, had returned to Holland.
Admiral Cæuw, with five of bis ships, went to China, to obtain help from the Tartars. But a fresh tempest having again dispersed his little squadron, he, with three of his vessels, was thrown on the coast of Siam, whence he sent them back to Batavia. The two others returned to Taiovan without having been able to get any help.
The Chinese having continuously battered the redoubt and fired more than seventeen hundred shots at it, the besieged were forced to abandon it. The enemy, taking possession of it, one hundred of them were blown into the air in consequence of a lighted match which had been left close to the powder. But the Chinese immediately raised a cavalier in the