Early English adventurers in the East (1917)/Chapter 14
CHAPTER XIV
The Black Tragedy of Amboina
Conclusion of the treaty of defence—Disagreements as to its interpretation—The English in the Eastern Islands—Gabriel Towerson, the chief agent—Von Speult, the Dutch governor—Description of Amboina—A Japanese arrested for conspiring against the Dutch—He implicates the English—Abel Price under torture confirms the story—Arrest of Towerson and the other English officials—They are examined and under torture confess their guilt—Subsequent protestations of innocence—The infamy of the transactions
THE great drama of English and Dutch ascendancy in Eastern seas is now rapidly moving towards its tragic dénouement. When the curtain lifts again nearly three years have passed since the gallant Courthope made his plunge to death near the scene of his hard-fought struggle for the honour of his country's flag. In the interval much has happened in the West to alter the current of Eastern events. The slow wheels of diplomacy revolving in England have ground out with many checks and much creaking that famous instrument known as the Treaty of Defence which was designed to set at rest the vexed controversies that for so long had disturbed the harmony of the representatives of the two races in the East. It had been received on its first promulgation in the theatre of war with manifestations of joy in the rival camps. The two fleets instead of falling upon each other in deadly combat, as they would inevitably have done in the absence of an arrangement, celebrated a sort of lovefeast in which congratulations were exchanged over copious libations and mutual pledges were given of the introduction of an era of good fellowship and general contentment. But it was a case of "Peace, peace, when there is no peace."
The diplomats had devised cunningly, but they had not reckoned with the one element which was all important— human nature. On each side the Treaty was accepted with reservations, which doomed it to failure at the outset. The Dutch, represented by the implacable Coen, kept in the back of their mind their old resolve to monopolize the trade; the English entered upon the new era with all their ancient determination to carve out for themselves an independent position in the Eastern seas. Nothing, in fact, had really been altered but in the world of make-believe which diplomacy has marked out as her special province.
Almost before the smoke of the salutes which greeted the signing of the Treaty had died away dissensions had arisen between the English and the Dutch representatives at Batavia over the interpretation of the clauses of the Treaty. There were no doubt faults on both sides. The Dutch were exacting; the English were laggard in meeting their responsibilities; each sought to drive to the fullest limit the conditions which seemed in its favour without reference to the balancing requirements of the instrument. Coen's influence, too, counted for much in the darkening of counsel. His spirit is well illustrated in the instructions he left to General Carpentier, his successor, when he handed over the reins of government in 1623. He told Carpentier to "maintain carefully the sovereignty and highest jurisdiction" of the Dutch in the Eastern seas "without sharing or suffering the English or any other to encroach thereupon." "Trust them not any more than open enemies," he wrote, "and give no way to the shortening of the sovereignty and common good, nor of the respect, reputation and countenance of the same, not weighing too scrupulously what may fall out," The Dutch policy, in fine, must be what it always had been, to exclude its rivals absolutely from any real participation in the trade of the Eastern islands.
Thus it was that all over this part of the East wherever the two races were in contact there was in spite of the Treaty friction and distrust, and as time wore on a rapidly widening alienation verging at points on open hostility.
When the fateful year 1623 dawned the English had scattered about the islands a number of small factories, eking out a precarious existence on the slender resources provided by the Company. The principal establishment was at the capital of Amboina, the headquarters of the Dutch Government and the chief seat of the spice trade. On the same island, at Hitoe and Larica, were branch agencies, while on the adjacent large island of Ceram were factories at Cambello and Luhu, They were all miserably equipped—it would seem almost from the correspondence of the time that they were in the last stages of financial decadence. The question of abandonment, indeed, had been seriously discussed in the later months of 1622 and had apparently only been postponed until fuller advices could be received.
English interests at the period were in the principal charge of Gabriel Towerson, who figured in an earlier chapter of the narrative as the husband of Mrs. Hawkins, the enterprising Armenian lady of Agra. Towerson appears to have parted from his wife in India, after an abortive attempt to trade privately there, and later to have settled down as one of the Company's representatives at Bantam. When he took up his duties at Amboina he had had almost twenty years' continuous service in the East and was one of the Company's most experienced officials. The impression we gather of him from the records is that of an easy-going free-living Englishman who was not at all of the material of which dangerous innovators are made. He evidently, from his letters, shared to the full his countrymen's distrust and dislike of Dutch methods. But that he bore no malice—that he even had no feeling of actual antagonism to his rivals is shown by a request he preferred to his superiors at Batavia that they should recognize the good offices of the Dutch Governor, Herman Van Speult, in providing the English with a house to reside in at Amboina, by making him a present. This suggestion, put forward as late as the closing days of 1622, came to nothing because the English Council thought that Towerson had made too much of the "dissembled friendship "of Van Speult who was designated "a subtle man." But the mere fact that the proposal was made is of great significance in view of what was to follow.
Van Speult, the Dutch Governor, was an official trained in the school of Coen, and, indeed, directly appointed by him for the special service of safeguarding the sanctity of the Dutch monopoly in the Eastern Islands. He was a worthy disciple of the great creator of Dutch ascendancy. In him were united those dour qualities which have made the Hollander in all periods so formidable a foe. Stern of visage and taciturn of disposition his whole energies were absorbed in the task which patriotic duty had imposed upon him. As the English factors at Batavia had said, he was "a subtle man," and like most men of that stamp he was inordinately suspicious. Seated in the isolation of his official residence his jaundiced eyes had visions of risings and dark conspiracies of which his government was the object. Not, however, that he was without sound reason for distrust of the outwardly peaceful horizon. From the remoter islands with every ship must have come warnings of native discontent mingled vdth definite news of sinister meetings in woods and of assassinations and other tragic happenings traceable to political unrest. The whole atmosphere, indeed, was charged with a note of disaffection which vibrated painfully upon the nerves of Van Speult and his brother officials.
Turn we now from the chief personalities in this drama of Amboina with which we are about to deal to the setting given to it. By way of contrast to the gloom of the tragedy nothing could have been more impressive than this. Captain Fitzherbert, who visited the place just before the occurrence, in a letter home said, "Amboina sitteth as a Queen between the Isles of Banda and the Moluccas. She b beautified with the fruits of several factories and dearly beloved of the Dutch." That sailor's impression vividly suggests the natural charms of this famous island. Over it all is the glamour of the East in its most fascinating form. A placid opalescent sea washes a palm- fringed shore, from which rise lofty verdure-clad hills suffused in the violet haze of the strong tropical sun, In the waters around like satellites about a star of the first magnitude are other isles equally beautiful though not so favoured in situation.
The capital is placed on the half of the island known as Leytimor, in such a position that it looks out upon the coast of the second and larger section designated Hitoe. Its main feature is a strong fortification called Fort Victoria, with solid masonry ramparts and bastions, and based on one side by the sea. In this castle, as it was termed, was in the early seventeenth century the Governor's residence and the principal headquarter establishments of the Government with a considerable garrison of Dutch troops. So enormous was the strength of the position that it could have been held almost independently even without the support of the shipping that was nearly always in the roads against any enemy that could be brought against it. The actual tragedy of Amboina opened with dramatic fitness with a very simple scene. One evening as the garrison were at prayers a Japanese mercenary in the employ of the Dutch, wandering apparently aimlessly about the castle, on the ramparts came upon a young Dutch soldier acting as sentinel. Accosting him he asked how many soldiers there were in the garrison and how often the guards were relieved. There was nothing very extraordinary about the questions, the answers to which presumably could have been supplied by a little observation. But the Japanese had the previous evening made precisely the same inquiries; and, moreover, he had passed on to a portion of the fortifications which was forbidden ground to him as a private soldier. What, perhaps, was worse than these indiscretions was that he and his countrymen had for some time past fraternized overmuch with the Englishmen. Suspicion, consequently, fastened so strongly upon him that orders were given for his arrest.
The Japanese was, or professed himself to be, greatly surprised at the result of his evening ramble. His answer to the inquiries of the council before whom he was brought was that his questions had been prompted by mere curiosity—"without any malicious intentions." This reply, though a natural one, was deemed so unsatisfactory that, in accordance with the establlshed practice of that barbaric judicial age, it was decided to put the man to the torture. He is said in the official Dutch record to have "endured pretty long," but ultimately under the extreme pain his stoicism broke down and he "confessed." His first statement was a bald one to the effect that the Japanese had resolved to make themselves masters of the castle. It was probably the first invention that came into his agonized mind. Instead of saving him from further unwelcome attentions it only stimulated the unholy zeal of his examiners. Once more the terrors of the torture chamber were exposed. Then, unable to bear the situation longer he declared that the English were his accomplices and that he had acted at the direct instigation of another Japanese, Cevice Michick by name, who had originally been in the pay of the English Company, but was now in the Dutch service.
"I was extremely surprised when I heard of this conspiracy," wrote Van Speult in his dispatch dealing with the episode. Well he might have been. The Japanese were an insignificant element of the population; the English were even less numerous—a mere handful scattered about the islands in positions which prohibited close communication. The ever present dread of revolt, however, lent a powerful stimulus to the official Dutch imagination. Van Speult saw things in a distorted perspective which magnified these trivial bodies of aliens into a potentially powerful combination capable of dire mischief to the Government. He acted as if the danger were imminent. The prisoner was placed in close confinement and double guards were everywhere established. Meanwhile, the other Japanese soldiers, twelve in number, were brought into the castle and disarmed.
Next attention was turned to the English. The staff of the English factory lived in quarters in the town some little distance off. But it so happened that at the time there was in confinement in the castle one of the number, Abel Price by name, who had got himself into trouble by setting fire to a Dutchman's house when intoxicated. Price is described in the records as a "Chirurgeon," and presumably was a man of education though evidently not of exalted morals. The council had him brought before them to see what light he could throw upon this conspiracy which had been so providentially brought to light.
Price, dragged forth from his dungeon possibly with the effects of alcoholic excess still upon him, cut a poor figure. He "after little or no torture," to adopt the curious phraseology of the Dutch record, "instantly confessed, saying that on New Year's Day (their style) Captain Towerson had called them together, viz. the English merchants and the other officers, and first had had them take their oath of secrecy and faithfulness on their Bible. After this he pointed out to them that their nation was greatly troubled by us and treated unjustly, and was very little respected; for which he thought to revenge himself. If they would help him and assist him faithfully, he knew how to render himself master of the castle, to which some of them made objections, saying their power was too small. On which the said Captain Towerson replied that he had already persuaded the Japanese and others and they were willing to assist him. He would not (he said) have want of people for all of them were willing. Moreover the said Price confessed he had been used voluntarily to persuade the Japanese and others, and that the Japanese to the number of twelve at the time the plot would have been acted upon, would first have murdered the guard and the governor if he was there; and then Captain Towerson and the merchants and all their people (whom he would have ordered from the factory for that purpose) would have come to the rescue. . . . They also agreed that all Dutchmen who would not agree with them should be murdered. The money and merchandise of the Company they would have divided amongst each other."
Such was the statement which was extorted from this poor feckless creature after "little or no torture." It was a preposterous story on the face of it, A score of English without arms, without ships, without military organization of any kind, with the aid of a dozen Japanese were to capture the great Dutch stronghold with its substantial garrison, subvert the entire Dutch power, and in the end divide amongst themselves as spoils of war the property of a strong mercantile organization which at the time was in intimate alliance with their own Company! The only possible way in which such a scheme could have been made feasible was by the association of a wide reaching native rebellion with the conspiracy, and even then it would have been a most desperate venture.
Dutch fears, however, saw in the concocted nonsense a full confirmation of their own excited imaginings. Orders were forthwith issued for the apprehension of the whole of the English within the jurisdiction of the Government. Towerson was first seized at the English factory and kept a prisoner there. The other members of the staff, John Beomont, Edward Collings, Emanuel Thomson, Wm. Webber, Ephraim Kamsey, Timothy Johnson, John Fardo and Robert Brown, were sent on board the Dutch ship in the roads. Afterwards Samuel Coulson, John Clark and George Sharrock who were at Hitoe and Wm. Griggs and John Sadler, who were at Larica, were brought in. Finally, the party was completed by the addition of John Powle, John Wetherall and Thomas Ladbrook who had charge of the factory at Cambello.
The Dutch net had been cast so wide as to include every single representative of the English nation, however mean his status. For example, Fardo and Sadler were butlers and Brown was a tailor, while Ramsey and Webber were clerks. If we are to accept as accurate the descriptions given in the Dutch records the unfortunate company was thoroughly representative of the various parts of the kingdom. Collings came from London, Beomont from Berkshire, Griggs from Bedfordshire, Webber from Devon, Coulson from Newcastle, Wetherall from Rutland. Price, as may be surmised, was a Welshman, and Brown and Ramsey hailed from Scotland—rather curiously as there were few Scotchmen in the East India Company's service in these early days, though a century later they were very numerous.
It was probably without serious misgiving that the prisoners faced their confinement. How little they suspected the fate that was preparing for them is shown by the well attested circumstance that during the examination of the Japanese they visited the castle as usual, hearing probably from rumour with interest but without concern for themselves of the hard lot of the Japanese. They had, however, not long to wait for the revelation of their true position. Even before the last batch of prisoners had been brought in the examination had commenced with all its awful adjuncts.
The first to be called before the council were John Beomont and Timothy Johnson. With a refinement of cruelty Beomont was left with a guard in the hall while his companion was taken into the examination room. His feelings may be imagined when a little later he heard Johnson "cry out pitifully, then to be quiet for a little while, then to be loud again." What had happened was that Johnson had at the outset denied all knowledge of any conspiracy, in spite of the torture, and had been confronted with Price still without eliciting any confession. Thereupon Price was removed and the torture again applied.
"At last," as the pathetic English story says, "after he had been an hour under the second examination he was brought forth wailing and lamenting all wet and cruelly burnt in divers parts of his body, and so laid aside in a by place in the hall with a soldier to watch him so that he should speak to nobody."
From the account given in the famous pamphlet prepared by the East India Company to secure redress for the terrible wrongs inflicted at this time, the torture was of two kinds. There was first the water ordeal. For this a prisoner was tied with arms and legs extended on a wooden frame and a cloth was bound round his head so as to form a loop about the mouth. Then water was slowly poured from above on to the cloth in such fashion that the victim was compelled to swallow the fluid. The process after a time produced distension of the body and caused exquisite pain. If this method was not sufficient to bring the prisoner to a proper state of mind the second and more drastic operation was introduced. This took the form of the application of a lighted candle under the armpits, upon the soles of the feet and the palms of the hand. The agony, needless to say, was excruciating and the torture rarely failed of its purpose.
Emanuel Thomson was the next victim after Johnson to suffer. He was comparatively an old man—his age is given as 51—but his grey hairs did not save him from the unspeakable cruelties of "the Chamber of Horrors " as it was appropriately styled. For over an hour and half he suffered the agonies of the tests before he would "confess" sufficiently to satisfy his examiners. Beomont, who meantime had been shivering in apprehension in the hall, was now brought in. With "deep oaths and protestations of innocence" he was made fast for the ordeal, and then the judges having had their fill apparently of their diabolical work ordered him to be released with the observation that they would spare him for a day or two because he was an old man.
The following day, which was a Sunday, the examination was resumed. Brown, the first to be summoned, assented to all that was asked of him without the application of the torture. He was succeeded by Colllngs, who gave the inquisitors more trouble. When he had been tied up for the water test his heart momentarily failed him and he promised to confess if let down. But when he had been released he "again vowed and protested his innocency," atating that as he knew that they would by torture "make him confess anything though never so false they should do him a great favour by telling him what they would have him say and he would speak it to avoid the torture."
"The fiscal whereupon said: 'What, do you mock us!' and bade 'Up with him again,' and so gave him the torment of water which he not being able to endure prayed to be let down again to his confession. Then he devised a little with himself and told them that about two months and a half before himself, Thomson, Johnson, Brown and Fardo had plotted with the help of the Japans to surprise the castle.
"Here he was interrupted by the fiscal and asked whether Towerson were not of the conspiracy. He answered 'No.'
"'You lie,' said the fiscal. 'Did he not call you to him and tell you that those daily abuses of the Dutch had caused him to think a plot and that he wanted nothing but your consent and service?'
"Then said a Dutch merchant—one John Joost—that sat by: 'Did you not all swear upon the Bible to be secret to him?'
"Collings answered with great oaths that he knew nothing of any such matter. Then they made him fast again. Whereupon he then said all was true that they had spoken. Then the fiscal asked him whether the English in the rest of the factories were not concerned of the plot. He answered 'No.' The fiscal then asked him whether the president of the English at Jakatra (Batavia) or Welden, agent, in Banda, were not plotters or privy to the business. Again he answered 'No.'
"Then the fiscal asked him by what means the Japans should have executed their purpose. Whereat when Collings stood staggering and devising of some probable fiction the fiscal holpe him and said: 'Should not two Japans have gone to each point of the castle and two to the governor's chamber door and when the hurly burly had bin without and the governor coming to see what was the matter the Japaners would have killed him?'"
Eventually Collings agreed to all that was asked and was dismissed, "and very glad to come clear of his torture though with certain belief that he should die for his confession."
Upon Coulson fell the next summons, and when after the usual process he had been brought out "weeping, lamenting and protesting his innocency," Clark was put to the torture. He proved the most resolute of the party. After he had been plied with water "till his body was swolne twice or thrice as big as before, his cheeks like great bladders and his eyes staring and strutting out beyond his forehead" and still refused to speak, the fiscal and his tormenters "reviled him saying that he was the devil and no man, or surely was a witch, or at least had some charm about him or was enchanted that he should bear so much." Having thus vented their feelings upon the wretched man, they "cut off his hair very short as supposing he had some witchcraft hidden therein."
Subsequently they again applied the torture, burning him with candles "until his inwards might evidently be seen," when at length, "wearied and overcome with the torments he answered 'Yea' to whatsoever they asked." At length, "having martyred this pore man, they sent him out with four blacks who carried him between them to a dungeon where he lay for five or six days without a surgeon to dress his wounds."
This concluded "the Saboth Day's work," but the next morning the inquisitors were at their dreadful operations again. Beomont was one of the first to suffer. He was "triced up and drenched with water till his inwards were ready to crack." Like the rest he could not withstand the terrible argument employed. "He answered affirmatively to all the Fiscal's interrogatories."
As soon as the examination of all the prisoners was complete Towerson was called in "deeply protesting his innocence." Coulson was brought to confront him and there was a painful moment of silence. At length on being told that he would be taken to the torture again if he did not speak Coulson "coldly re-affirmed" his confession. Griggs and Fardo were next ushered in. A dramatic scene followed. Towerson "seriously charged them as they should answer at the dreadful day of Judgment they should speak nothing but the truth. Both of them instantly fell down on their knees, praying him for God's sake to forgive them and saying further openly before them all that whatsoever they had confessed was false and spoken only to avoid torment." Upon this the fiscal threatened them again with the torture, with the inevitable result that the poor fellows "affirmed their former confessions to be true."
When Coulson was required to sign his confession he asked the fiscal "upon whose head he thought the sinne would be, whether upon his that was constrained to confess what was false or upon the constrainers?" The fiscal after a little pause upon this question went to the governor then in another room and anon returning told Coulson he must subscribe, at which he did yet withal make this protest:—
"'Well,' quoth he, 'you make me accuse myself and others of that which is false as God is true: for God is my witness, I am as innocent as the child new borne.'"
At length the examinations were complete. The version given of them is the English one, but there is no reason to doubt its substantial accuracy. Though afterwards Van Speult and his associates challenged the truth of the allegations that the confessions were extorted by torture they admitted that torture was used in a minor degree and the circumstance, in modern eyes at least, will be held to vitiate the whole proceedings more especially as even in the Dutch records there is not a scintilla of direct evidence, apart from the confessions, to bring guilt home to the prisoners. It is true that Van Speult at a later period spoke of documentary evidence in his possession connecting Towerson with the conspiracy, but this as far as can be ascertained was never produced. Nor is it likely that it existed, for if certain proofs had been available they would assuredly have been forthcoming when the justice of the procedure was violently challenged as it was at a subsequent stage.
There is a possibility that the details of the torture have been painted in a little too lurid colours. Men labouring under a great sense of wrong as the survivors were were not hkely to exercise much restraint in relating personal experiences of a painful kind. As far as the use of torture was concerned it must, too, be remembered that such was not an uncommon feature of judicial procedure in that period. Only a few years before the scenes described in the Amboina Chamber of Horrors, Guido Fawkes, the principal conspirator in the Gunpowder Plot, had been placed upon the rack to extort that confession which the curious visitor to the Record Office in London inspects with other historic documents. The reader also will remember that torture was even practised in cases of theft on the vessels of the English East India Company. In fact the system was too general to make any specific instance a certain indication of unbridled brutality on the part of those who practised it. Still, remembering in what relation the English stood to the Dutch, recalling the age of several of them and having regard also to the source from whence the accusations against them emanated, it must be considered that these cruelties at Amboina carried with them a sense of indelible infamy.