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 2i2

HISTORY" OF INDIA.

[Book II.

A..D. 1604. as before, since botli voyages were afterwards entered in one account, amounted to £60,450. Of this sum, the repaii-, ec^uipraent, and provision of tiie vessels absorbed no less than X48, 140, whereas the amount carried out in goods was only £1142; the remainder was bullion. The very paltry sum allowed for goods may perhaps be accounted for by the large quantity of Portugue.se pi-ize goods which Lancaster had left for future sale in the factories of Acheen and Bantam.

The vessels left Gravesend on the 25th of March, 1G04; and by this early departure avoiding the blunder by which they had formerly lost the proper season, arrived safely in Bantam Road on the 20th of December folio win f. Here they found six ships and three or four pinnaces belonging to the Dutch, with whom for a time a friendly intercourse was kept up, the Dutch admiral dining aboard the Dragon. At Bantam this intercourse remained undisturbed ; and the Hector and Susan having completed their cargoes about the middle of February, 1605, set sail for England. The Red Dragon and Ascension pro- ceeded for the Moluccas, from which the Dutch were then endeavoming to expel the Portuguese. In this having so for succeeded as to compel the surrender of the castle of Amboyna, the Dutch immediately altered their tone to the

Attempt to trade with the Spice Islands.

Temate, Tidore, and Uaiida.

Amboyna. — Churchill's Collection of Voyages.

English, and formally debarred them from trading to that island. On general principles, there is good ground for disputing the exclusive title which the Dutch thus assumed ; but it seems impossible to deny that the Company were not the proper parties to call it in question, as they were expressly prohibited, by a clause in their charter, from attempting to establish a trade at any place in the actual possession of any friendly Christian power which should openly object to it. But there were other islands of the Molucca group, to which, as the Dutch could not pretend to be in possession of them, the objection could not apply ; and the English vessels were only exercising a right which undoubtedly belonged to tliem, when they endeavoured to carry on a traffic with Ternate, Tidore, and Banda. Circumstances, howevei", were unpropitious ; and the Dutch,