was young, but a Regent or Mayor of the Palace, whom we called the Pangran or Pangaran, and the Dutch the Pangéran, would give the Netherland Company the monopoly of the trade of the country, and would expel the English. He refused, not from any love of us, whom he was perfectly disposed to fleece, but because he would not put his neck into a collar. Of course, Coen's offer was known in our factory (the Pangran would take care that it was), and it heated the already fiery hostility of English and Dutch still further. And now at that west end of Java, and in the years 1617 and 1618, there a bubble of accusation and retort, a strenuous playing off of one against the other all round. Coen threatened to remove the staple of the Dutch trade to Jacatra. The Raja was willing enough to meet him half way, for he saw a prospect of increased revenue. The "Pangran" was enraged by the manœuvres of his vassal, and sent soldiers to bully him. The English factory was bringing itself to decide that the most promising course for it was to join in with the Bantamese to make an end of the "frogs of the Batavian marsh." Coen was convinced that the best thing he could do was to lay hands on Jacatra, and put the desired "rendezvous or headquarters there. It had a harbour formed by a river, a good roadstead, and a feeble prince. Things were not ripe for a conquest of Bantam. There were but few English in Jacatra. That was the line of least resistance. So before 1618 came to an end he was transferring the Company's treasures first to ships, then to little islands on the coast, as a preliminary to storing them in the fort, which under his incessant driving, and also under the nose of the poor old Raja, was growing daily at Jacatra. And there he must be left for a moment, since at this point other personages come into the saga. Ever since 1611 the East India Company had been appealing to King James for protection against the Dutch. The King, and it is only fair to say the same of the States General, was honestly desirous to protect traders and to keep the peace. The two governments were painfully negotiating the arrangement of a modus vivendi. The only effectual way would have been to send out governors appointed by the State, with squadrons of men-of-war and soldiers. But neither the kingdom of Great Britain nor the Seven United Provinces had the means to take that course. panies had been brought into existence because their governments were poor and feeble. And who was to control them on the other side of the world? A war between the two nations in Europe would have been a disaster to both in 1618. The English Company showed how little it expected from the King by organising and sending The com out a squadron of nine ships, in large numbers, were morally well armed, direct to the Indian no better in Virginia than at Archipelago to trade, of home. They would hang about course, but also to fight. The the provision store for rations, Company had another "fleet " shoot game, catch fish, but in the Eastern seas under chiefly they wandered off to Martin Pring. It had been live by cadging and coshering sent to work the regular trade among the Indian tribes. They round-up the Mozambique would do anything but work. Channel to the Gulf of Cam- Dale set himself to reform baya, then with Guzerat goods them. As was inevitable, he to the straits of Malacca. The did his feat by hanging untwo were to join, and sweep manageable specimens and flogDutch obstructions out of the ging a great deal. Even in way. A good plot and good an age which was not tender friends-on the face of it. in the exercise of authority, and held strongly to the faith that whipping was the proper cure for lazy vagabonds, male and female, Dale was thought to have gone to extremes. But there is no doubt that, helped by the arrival of a better stamp of colonists, he did bring Virginia to order, and started it on a good road, during his two terms as Governor. In 1616 he was back in London, and was open to the offers of the Company. As the nine ships going direct were rather more for fighting than for trade, the Company decided to appoint a general who was a martial man. The officer they selected from among several possible chiefs was Sir Thomas Dale. He was an old Low Country officer, who had served with credit in one of the English regiments on the Dutch establishment. When the twelve years' truce with Spain was made in 1609, he had, without resigning his The Governor and CommitDutch commission, taken ser- tees cannot be blamed for vice with the Virginia Company, choosing a man with this record and had been appointed in appointed in to speak with Coen at the 1611 Marshal to the Governor And yet of the colony on the James River, Lord De La Warr. After the Governor's death he had ruled the colony. The Company had adopted the imbecile, and as Bacon very frankly told it, also wicked, course of trying to make a colony out of rogues, vagabonds, criminals, and the sweepings of the streets. These wretched creatures, who were often diseased and died gates of the sea. the choice was not a wise one. It was easy enough to keep a regiment in order with military discipline, and such a commander-in-chief as Maurice of Nassau to support you. Nor was it difficult to cow rogues and vagabonds, cowardly animals the most of them, and helpless too. It was quite another matter to contend with the Dutch Governor-General, who was well armed, and was, pelago, and in the Spice Islands. moreover, both fierce and He was able and resolute; astute. And then it was not but though loyal and of good certain that an old Low disposition, he was quite as Country officer, officer, trained to capable as ever was Dale of trench warfare, to mining, and playing the arbitrary gentleman the taking or defending of when he saw occasion. Either ports (the Low Country wars of these might have done well were little else), would be the by himself. But when they best kind of leader to make were coupled together, each full use of ships. What was endowed with full authority even less promising for the over one of the two conflicting success of the expedition was sides of the duty to be perthat the Company sent their formed, it was as certain as fleet out under a divided com- anything could be that they mand. would be at sixes and sevens before they had been long in the Straits of Malacca. We have seen that the ships were to be used for trade as well as for fighting. Now Dale was not averse to buying and selling. When the Company hired him at a salary of £480-good pay at that time —it had taken a promise from him to abstain from private trade. Yet it soon found that he was investing money-the States had just paid him £1000 as arrears, which had accumulated during his absence in America—in a private venture. He was rebuked, and ordered to desist. But he had no training in business, and the Company was resolved to keep him out of its commercial affairs. It took what it thought was the effectual course of naming a President for trading, and giving him the command of that side of the work of the expedition. chosen was very fit. John Jourdain had been much in the East, and had already done the Company good service in India, in the Archi The man While Dale and Jourdain were on their way, and Pring was crossing the Bay of Bengal, Coen was pushing on with his preparations. He had fully expected an English irruption into the Spice Islands, and had sent every ship, man, and barrel of gunpowder he could spare to the place where he judged they would be most needed. The Company had not provided him as amply as he thought it should. He rebuked the Seventeen for their lack of foresight and of zeal with the candour of a faithful servant, and in exceptionally clear prose. But their failure to do enough was for him only one reason the more for doing his utmost. The first thing to be attended to was the putting of that half-finished fort into as good a state of defence as might be. The Raja, driven by his overlord at Bantam, was drawing lines of circumvallation about it, and the English then at Jacatra is a double-minded operation. were lending a hand. Coen Dale reached Bantam on 19th burst out on them, pierced their line, made a flank, and rolled them up. They were swept back except at one point, where they were heavily stockaded. It was a good beginning. Just at that time he learnt that Dale had reached Bantam, and had joined Pring at that anchorage. Sir Thomas's voyage had not been free from misfortunes. While his squadron was passing through the Straits of Sunda between Java and Sumatra, the Sun, the largest and most richly laden vessel in it, was wrecked on the island of Enganho, and became an all but total loss. On the other hand, after reaching Bantam, he had sighted and had seized the Swarte Leeuw-i.e., the Black Lion,a large and richly laden Dutch Indiaman. The capture was a reprisal for the seizure of English ships in the Spice Islands. Dale and Pring had fifteen sail between them; Coen had with him but seven sail, and some of them were rerefitting. To all seeming, and indeed in sober fact, the English leaders had only to make "the book moves," to do the visibly correct thing, and they could easily have taken the Governor-General and his ships, which were less than half as numerous as their own. With all their trumps and their honours, they contrived to lose the game. A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways, and so November, but it was not until 20th December that he sailed eastward to Jacatra. He excused this dawdling waste of a whole month by saying that they abode at their first anchorage to refresh their men. Crews were always in need of refreshing after the long voyages of those times. They had left Table Bay on 25th July, and had employed twenty days in extorting blackmail from a Portuguese carrack on the way. But since they could start out to pursue and take the Black Lion, it is clear that they had all the health they needed to sail forty-five miles to the eastward for the purpose of overpowering Coen. They would have found him with several of his ships half-rigged. It would be none the less rather unjust to attribute all this delay to mere sloth. doubt the trade interfered with the fighting. They lost time unloading cargo. It is well known that, as might have been expected, Dale and Jourdain differed as to the best course to be taken, and we can safely assume that their disputes hampered the vigorous use of the ships for warlike purposes. No keeper, was by temperament on the enemy, breaking through and by virtue of his way of dealing with ticklish problems a leader in war. The trade and the fort must look after themselves for a time. To get his seven ships into trim as fast as possible, to start out eastward, concentrate them, and the others in the islands, and then to come back with a superior force and make an end of the English was his plan. He saw, and persuaded his council to see, what Sir Thomas Dale, worthy old Low Country officer as he was, and John Jourdain, that honest and zealous servant of the Company in all matters of trade, were, as their actions prove, incapable of understanding-namely, that victory at sea would give superiority on land, and that it would be won by whoever brought the greater force of ships into action at the right time and place. Before going he had to transfer such of the Dutch company's goods as were still in the small islands to the fort at Jacatra. He had also to see that this "strength," such as it was, had been "pridied up," to use a sailor's term of that age, as far as it could be. Dale allowed him time to do both. On the 20th December the English squadron, minus some ships which were left discharging cargo at Bantam, sailed to attack Coen. They found him at anchor near one of the islands. It was late, and action was deferred till next day. A plan was laid for bearing down One him, and making use of a fireship. Dale's report to the London Company has been printed in the preface to the Calendar of State Papers, Colonial East Indies,' Vol. iii. It is clear on all the main points, and agrees substantially with the Dutch story as told in Mr de Jonghe's 'Opkomst van het Nederlandsch Gezag over Java.' But it is not very full in all details. gathers that this spirited plan was meant to be acted on if the Dutch could be attacked while at anchor. But all depended on whether the enemy was fool enough to allow us to act as we pleased. Coen did not fall into the mistake which the ill-fated John Jourdain committed soon afterwards. He did not leave the initiative to the English. Early next morning he stood to sea, no doubt while the off-shore wind which rose at night was still blowing. The actual direction of the ships would, of course, be left to the Dutch admiral. Both fleets manœuvred to gain the weather gauge. Though Dale's force was superior in numbers by eleven to seven sail, no real advantage was gained by us. The action, according to the General, was bloody. Our casualties were numerous, though he felt sure that we had inflicted far heavier loss on the enemy. Soldiers, so Sir William Napier says, always exaggerate the injury they do to their enemy, and so do |