Page:History of India Vol 7.djvu/136

 98 THE STRUGGLE FOR THE EASTERN ARCHIPELAGO drunken English sailors, one of whom we hanged and the other three were flogged round the fleet. This sea-struggle around the western entrances into the Archipelago had its counterpart conflict on shore. The ships of the two Protestant nations were indi- vidually pretty well matched, the captains equally skilful, the crews equally brave, and victory some- times fell to the one, sometimes to the other. Our cursing and stamp- ing admiral, Sir Thomas Dale— a determined man, bred in the cruel school of the Spanish-Dutch war- had by unsparing severity wrung order out of anarchy in Virginia, and was sent with six ships to In- dia in 1618. But the English found the land forces in Java numerically superior to their own, and directed by a man of still more masterful character, and with a genius for organization not possessed by any other European then in the East. Jan Pieterszoon Coen, born at Hoorn in 1587, had learned the secrets of commerce in the famous house of the Piscatori at Rome, and went first to Dutch India in 1607. By 1613 his talents raised him to the office of director-general of commerce and president at Ban- tam, with the control of all outlying agencies (comp- A NATIVE OF JAVA.