Page:History of India Vol 7.djvu/195

 THE FATE OF VAN SPEULT 151 been one of those commonplace officials who jump to conclusions and then remain obdurate to facts. His interception of the letter from our president at Batavia ordering the withdrawal of the English from Amboyna, was only the last act in the suppression of proof of innocence. The Dutch authorities themselves felt uneasy lest Van Speult should be examined as to his share in the business. On the expiration of his term of office at Am- boyna, he had hardly returned to Batavia when a rumour arrived of a ship in the Straits of Sunda bear- ing a joint commission from the king and States-Gen- eral for the despatch of Van Speult to Europe. He was hastily sent off to the western coast of India, whence he proceeded with an expedition to the Red Sea, and he died at Mocha, carrying his secret to the grave. Meanwhile the English, with their agents drawn in from the Spice Archipelago, and huddled together at Batavia, waited wistfully for redress from home. They waited in vain. News of the Amboyna tragedy reached Batavia on June 20, 1623. At length, having suffered nineteen more months of insults and exactions, their ships dogged by Dutch vessels at sea and cut off from trade on shore, they resolved to quit " this perfidious people," and, cost what it might, to seek shelter else- where. Some of them found refuge on the Indian coast, and in October, 1624, the miserable remnant sailed to the unhealthy Lagundy islets on the southeast of Su- matra.