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JANUARY, 1924)
NOTES ON PIRAOY IN EASTERN WATERS
died as good Catholios after receiving the Eucharist from the monks and wore buried by the Brotherhood of Holy Mercy. "The only one that would not be converte 1 was the Admiral [i.e., Viesman), the most dogged and pertinacious heretic that ever I saw in my life” (de Morga, pp. 149, 169, 397). As the Spaniar is showed no mercy to the Dutch, they met with little in return. During the fight the Spanish ship Blessed Trinity caught fire and sank, leaving some 200 poor wretches in the water, crying out for mercy, to which the Dutch replied “with pikes, shot, yea (especially a priest in his habit) with derision" (Purchas, II, 201). So also in a fight between the Dutch and Spaniards on the 17th July 1615, some thirty of the latter were mercilessly slain as they floated helpless in the water crying for aid (Voyage of George Spilbergen, Purchas, II, 216).
200. It may be noted here that de Noort, under date 18th June 1599, mentions the curious but time-honoured (see Olans Magnus, IX, Cap. vi, De Punitione rebellium nautarum) punishment for mutiny at sea. This consisted in driving a knife into the mast through the hand of the mutineer, and leaving him standing there until he could muster resolution to tear his hand free.
201. In 1600 the French ships Croissant and Corbin (see para. 189 above) left St. Malo for the Indies. The Corbin was wrecked on the Maldives, but the Croissant reached Achin on the 26th July 1601. On the 20th November 1602 she was forced to leave suddenly as Captain La Bardelière was dying and his death in harbour, according to the custom of the country, would have caused his ship to be forfeited to the King. The ship reached Cape Finisterre on the 30th May 1603 in a sinking condition, when the remains of the crew, only fourteen in number, were rescued by some Dutch ships. The cargo was valued by the St. Malo Company at two million (? livres) and half was due as salvage to the rescuers. They seized it all (La Roncière, IV, 266).
Dutch and Malays. 202. It has been mentioned that the Dutch had not been well received in Sumatra. In September 1599 the Dutch ships Lion and Lioness, on which John Davis was pilot, were treacherously attacked at Achin and, before the assailants could be driven off, the Dutch commander and most of his officers (68 men in all) were killed. The Dutch could however hardly complain, because they had previously been guilty of various acts of petty piracy, and on the return voyage they took and plundered a ship sailing from Negapatam to Achin laden with rice (Kerr, VIII, 53, 61).
203. In September 1603 a junk from the Island of Lampong in the Straits of Sunda came to Bantam. The crew hid it in a creek near by, and disguised as Javanese entered the town head-hunting. Their Raja was acoustomed to give a female slave for every head brought him, a payment so prized that the head-hunters sometimes dug up and cut off the heads of bodies that had been newly buried (Soot, in Kerr, VIII, 152). These men must have been Dyaks.
English. 204. The first voyage of the East India Company, which was made by four ships under James Lancaster in 1601, appears to have been rather a privateering attack upon Spanish and Portuguese trade than a bona fide trading voyage (Low, I, 5, 6). In October 1605 the fleet under Sir Edward Mitchelbourne, whilst sailing to Patani, on the east coast of the Malay Peninsula, overhauled a junk which had been taken by Japanese pirates. Whilst the English rummaged the junk for spoil, they foolishly allowed a number of the Japanese on board their own ships. These men suddenly seized their own arms and any other weapons within reach and made a desperate attempt to capture the Tyger. They were overcome with the greatest difficulty, fighting to the last man, and amongst those of the English who were killed was John Davis the Navigator. Mitchelbourne's right to attack this junk was quite problematical, for he had had no previous knowledge that it was in the hands of
