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APRIL, 1924)
NOTES ON PIRAOY IN EASTERN WATERS
trumpet summoned the Dutch to surrender, threatening to attack them if they refused, to whioh they replied with their cannon." After an indecisive fight in which the English were assisted by the Javanese, they withdrew for reinforcements (Ambassades Mémorables, p. 26). In an "Account of the Goneral War the English began against us in December 1618" (Hague VaRuscript Records) it is stated :-"We tried to go before the wind as much as possible, but could not reach the English ships, as we anchored at some distance from thom. As we say they all had the blood flag hoisted on their stern, ours were hoisted as well.” Mr. Arnold Wright, who gave me the above quotation, says the 'bloed vlag' dates from tho Sea Beggars (1568), but, as I have shown, it is of much earlier origin. Sir Thomas displayed his bloody colours 'not only to the Dutch but also to the Portuguese, as e.g., on the 13th August 1619 when he met "Don Christofylus de l'Orayne," the Portuguese Admiral, and demanded of him 200,000 dollars "in part satisfaction for losses our Company had received ” from the Portuguese. After a long delay, bad weather came on, and it seemed possible that the enemy might escape, so Sir Thomas accepted 70,000 dollars for the Company and 10,000 for the men in his fleet (Cal. State Papers, 1620, p. xxi and Ind. Off. O. C., 767). Presumably the Portu. guese commander is the Admiral Don Christopher de Noronha mentioned by Faria (III, 281), who was deprived of his command by the Viceroy and sent to Lisbon as a prisoner for his cowardly compliance with the English demands.
Dutch and English. 237. The attacks of the Dutch on the Chinese have already been mentioned. Their cruelty towards their victims excited such indignation amongst their English allies that one can only wonder why the English continued to act in common with them, espocially when they must have remembered that the Dutch had so often committed similar atrocities under the English flag. Arnold Brown (Journal, Purchas, X, 504) says, under date 26th May 1621 :"The Dutch frigate fought with a Chinese junk but could not tako her : our frigate went up and took her, and the Dutch, coming aboard after they had yielded, killed and made leap overboard to the quantity of 60 or 70, like bloody- - ". On the 30th the English, having taken another junk, which had proved too strong for the Dutch, took the precaution to secure the lives of the men by putting them ashore, but even then the Dutch found satisfaction in setting the junk on fire. Robert Fox, in his account of tho voyage of tho James (April to July 1625), mentions the capture of various junks, which the English plundered and then made over to the Dutch (Ind. Off. Marine Records, vol. 39).
288. On the 22nd April 1622 the English, under Captains Blyth and Weddoll, assisted by a Persian land force, took Ormuz from the Portuguese. Though England was not at war with Spain and Portugal and the Company's ships were acting under their own charter and without any assistance or commission from the Admiralty, the latter domanded a share of the booty, and the Company was forced to pay £10,000 to the King and £10,000 to the Duko of Buokingham, who was Lord High Admiral (Bruce, I, 237; Low, I, 40).
289. In June 1622 the Dutch Admiral Kornelis Reyerszoon, with 13 ships, attacked the Portuguese Settlement at Macao, but without success (Faria, III, 312; Ljungstedt, 73).
240. In the same year and again in 1623) the Mughal Government imprisoned the English factors at Surat, Agra and Ahmadabad, because the Dutch had seized a number of vessels belonging to Gujarat, but by the judicious expenditure of money their explanations were accepted and they were released (Bruce, I, 235; Bomb. Gaz., II, 80, 83). On the 13th December 1622 the Spanish Ambassador in London formally complained of piracies committed by the merchants of the East India Company (Rymer's Foedera).
