that, if I went to dine with the English captain that day, I would never return; and very affectionately begged me to avoid it, because they had no hopes of being delivered from their captivity but through my means. But, after all, pursuant to my promise, I went and dined with the English captain, Mr Roberts, who treated me very kindly and handsomely, and gave me nothing to eat or drink but what he and the rest of the company took part of."[1] In an audience which the French commander had with the Achinese monarch, in which he informed him of his opinion of the Dutch and English, and what he had done to defeat their avarice, "This done," says the voyager, "the king informed me by the Shahandar, that I was both welcome and safe in his territories; that, as to the business of trade, the Dutch and English used heretofore to have pepper in his country at an easy rate, but now that they had shewn such flaming ingratitude, in making war upon the king of Bantam, who had formerly vouchsafed them a kind reception, he had thereupon caused all the pepper plants to be cut down for fear hereafter they should prove the occasion of trouble; that, by this means, the price of pepper was raised to 64 reals the bahar; and that, even at that price, he did not much care to let them have it, knowing
- ↑ Beaulieu in Harris's Collection, Vol. I. p. 730.
