Page:History of India Vol 7.djvu/147

 DECORATION FROM AW INDIAN SWORD. CHAPTER IV THE END OF THE STRUGGLE: THE TRAGEDY OF AMBOYNA 1623 EVENTS were now hastening to a catastrophe. The Dutch governor-general, Coen, while resolved to make the Archipelago an island empire for Holland, was too sagacious to imperil his plans by putting his nation openly in the wrong toward a great European power. He trusted to the treaty of 1619 itself to afford causes of quarrel, which would enable him to carry out the instructions given to the first Dutch governor-gen- eral, 1609 - 1614, and steadily reiterated ever since, that " the commerce of the Moluccas, Amboyna, and Banda should belong to the Company, and that no other nation in the world should possess the least part." But Coen's far-reaching policy was beyond the grasp of his bluff ship-captains, with their flaming broadsides, 109