DUTCH AND ENGLISH CONFLICTING CLAIMS 97 an equal share in the cheap pepper of Java, they would concede only one-third of the traffic with the clove and nutmeg islands of the further East. We were out- matched in point of knowledge as in armed force. The Dutch rested their title to these islands on their conquest from the Portuguese and on treaties with the local chiefs. The English claimed that they were places of common resort for the spice trade, that in some of them they had built blockhouses which the Dutch pulled down, and that others, including Amboyna, Pula- roon, and Rosengyn, had granted us a settlement or freely placed themselves under the protection of King James. The struggle for them, with its mutual out- rages and reprisals, need not be detailed. It com- menced as far back as 1608, became acute after 1616, and ended with the catastrophe of Amboyna in 1623. While the English tried to circumvent the Dutch western positions on the Malacca and Sunda straits, and to fasten on the richest spice isles of the eastern- most archipelago, they also threatened the Dutch settle- ments in Java itself. In December, 1618, the English by way of reprisal captured the Dutch l Black Lion at Bantam. In January, 1619, they beat the Dutch fleet in a " cruel bloody fight " in which three thousand great shot were fired without lasting result, and in October the Dutch defeated our squadron off Sumatra —the last battle for the famous old Red Dragon. The Dutch Black Lion had a less noble end— being acci- dentally burned while in our possession by four
