Page:Early English adventurers in the East (1917).djvu/225

 him confess anything though never so false they should do him a great favour by telling him what they would have him say and he would speak it to avoid the torture."

"The fiscal whereupon said: 'What, do you mock us!' and bade 'Up with him again,' and so gave him the torment of water which he not being able to endure prayed to be let down again to his confession. Then he devised a little with himself and told them that about two months and a half before himself, Thomson, Johnson, Brown and Fardo had plotted with the help of the Japans to surprise the castle.

"Here he was interrupted by the fiscal and asked whether Towerson were not of the conspiracy. He answered 'No.'

"'You lie,' said the fiscal. 'Did he not call you to him and tell you that those daily abuses of the Dutch had caused him to think a plot and that he wanted nothing but your consent and service?'

"Then said a Dutch merchant—one John Joost—that sat by: 'Did you not all swear upon the Bible to be secret to him?'

"Collings answered with great oaths that he knew nothing of any such matter. Then they made him fast again. Whereupon he then said all was true that they had spoken. Then the fiscal asked him whether the English in the rest of the factories were not concerned of the plot. He answered 'No.' The fiscal then asked him whether the president of the English at Jakatra (Batavia) or Welden, agent, in Banda, were not plotters or privy to the business. Again he answered 'No.'

"Then the fiscal asked him by what means the Japans should have executed their purpose. Whereat when