TEDIOUS PROTRACTION OF THE AMBOYNA TRIAL 143 in the wrong by his method of procedure, and again the Dutch knew it. His Majesty struggled for a time in the meshes he had woven around himself. In December, 1629, he insisted on reserving the final sentence either to himself or to a joint bench of English and Dutch judges, on the strength of the treaty of 1619. The Dutch quite truly rejoined that the treaty contained not a single article which implied joint jurisdiction in criminal cases, but only in what concerned the joint defence and trade. While the preliminaries were thus spun out from 1627 to 1630, the six Amboyna councillors who were supposed to be on their trial figured as patri- ots to their nation. The English witnesses, still un- heard, were sunk in debt to obtain food from day to day. They mournfully complained to the Privy Council that they had attended in Holland for twelve months, that they were now destitute and like to be cast into prison, while their wives and children were perishing miserably. In March, 1631, the British ambassador at The Hague reported that in the Amboyna business all was silence. It is doubtful, even if the Amboyna council had been promptly and impartially tried, whether the Lon- don Company would have obtained substantial redress. It is certain that no court administering the law then in force in Europe could have condemned the judges to death for the Amboyna executions. The two grounds which underlay the English contention were badly chosen. As a matter of fact, the Amboyna council had
