ii2 DUTCH HISTORY obtained at the mart of Lisbon, resolved to pr(^ ceed direct to the Indies in search of tho^e pro- ductions, and on the 2d of April 1595, a fleet of four ships sailed from the Texel for this purpose. The chief management of this important expedi- tion was entrusted to Cornelius Houtman, a Dutch merchant, vvho, without having visited the Indies, pretended to a knowledge of the Indian commerce obtained during a long captivity in Lisbon. On the 2d of June 1596, after a voyage of ten long months, the Dutch fleet arrived at Bantam, then the principal trading port of the Indies, in those commodities which the habits of Europe demand- ed. The adventurers, in their intercourse with the natives, beliaved without judgment or modera- tion. At Bantam they embroiled themselves with the inhabitants, and committed actual hostilities. At Sadayu, in Java, they committed a horrible massacre, and at Madura a still more atrocious one, in which the prince of that country and his family, coming to visit the Dutch fleet in a friendly man- ner, lost their lives through the suspicious timidity of these strangers. Houtman was little better than a presumptuous impostor, deficient in all the qua- lities necessary to the delicate affair entrusted to his management. The Dutch, encouraged to persevere by the suc- cess of their first adventure, though it was not con- siderable, sent a number of private ships to India
