232 COMMERCE WITH them to be an ill sort of people, that would rob and pillage, and do any thing, in order to engross the trade of the Indies to themselves." * But, three and twenty years after, the Dutch, with the assistance of the Achinese, conquered Malacca, they sent a powerful fleet against their ally, " to bring her to reason,^* by which they meant to subject her to the servitude of their com- mercial restrictions. In I675, they renewed their attempts upon her independence, and blockaded her ports, t The English, in 1684, on their ex- pulsion from Bantam by the influence of the Dutch, tried their fortune in the same way, and sent a mission from Madras, the modest object of which was to request permission to erect a fortification, or, in other words, to raise an independent autho- rity within the kingdom. " The purport of the embassy," says Mr Marsden, " was to obtain li- berty to erect a fortification in her territory, which she (the queen) peremptorily refused, being con- trary to the established rules of the kingdom ; add-
- Harris, Vol. I. p. 731.
-j- " About the year 1675, the Dutch made war on her, (the queen of Achin,) because she would not permit them to settle a factory at Achin, or rather to make her their vassal. They shut up the port of Achin by their shipping, and straitened the to.vn for want of provisions and other necessaries,"' &c. Hamilton's Neto Account of the East In- dies, Vol. H. p. 100.
