Page:Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (IA journalofstra17181886roya).pdf/245

 and the command was given on this occasion to LORENZO DE BRITO, an ancient and experienced officer. The two Holland ships did some small damage on the coast of Malabar and other places, and when off Malacca fell in with six ships bound from that place for India, commanded by FRANCISCO DE SILVA. They immediately engaged, and fought the whole of the afternoon and part of the night. Next morning the engagement was renewed, and was repeated for eight suc- cessive days, till, finding themselves too weak, the Hollanders drew off and made for the port of Queda, many of their men being slain and most of the rest wounded. At that place they quitted the smallest of their ships for want of men, and the other was afterwards cast away on the coast of Pegu.

In the year 1597 the Hollanders fitted out a squadron of eight ships at Amsterdam for India, with 800 men and provisions for three years, under the command of the admiral JACOB CORNELIUS VAN NEC. The object of this expedition, besides hostility to the king of Spain, who at that time usurped the throne of Portugal, was that they might pur- chase the spices and other commodities of Asia at a cheaper rate than they had hitherto been accustomed to in Portugal. The fleet sailed from Amsterdam on the 13th of May 1598. On the 24th July they saw the Cape of Good Hope, where three of the ships were separated in a violent storm. The other five ships, under the admiral, discovered the island of Madagascar on the 24th of August, coming to Cape St. Julian on the 30th of that month. On the 20th of September they came to the island of Ceme or Cisnc, in lat. 21°S., to which they gave the name of Mauritius. Here they found tortoises of such magnitude that one of them carried two men on its back, and birds which were so tame as to allow themselves to be killed with sticks, whence they concluded that the island was not inhabited. At Banda they joined the other three ships, and having laden four with spices, they were sent away to Holland, while the other three went into the Moluccas. On the 21st January 1599, they discovered the Great Java, and touched at the port of Tuban, after which they came to Madura, an island in lat. 2.30°S., on the 27th of that month. At this place they endeavoured to ransom