EUROPEAN NATIONS. ' 237 forts in Achin, were invited to Bencoolen and other adjacent parts by the natives, with the view of averting, what these apprehended a still great- er evil, the domination of the Dutch. It by no means appears that the East India Company's con- duct was such as to justify the confidence thus placed in them. The illustrious voyager Dampier was in the humble station of gunner of Bencoolen, in the year I69O, but five years after the first forma- tion of the settlement, and says of it, " The fort was but sorrily governed when I was there ; nor was there that care taken to keep up a fair corre- them, and bid them make haste aboard, which they did ; and this made us keep good watcli all night, having all our guns loaded and primed for service. But it rained so hard all the night, that I did not much fear being attacked by any Ma- layan ; being informed by one of our seamen, whom we took in at Malacca, that the Malayans seldom or never make any attack when it rains. It is what I had before observed of other Indians, both East and West ; and though then they might make their attacks with the greatest advantage on men armed with hand-guns, yet I never knew it practised, at which I have wondered ; for it is then we most fear them, and they might then be most successful, because their arras, which are usually lances and cressets, which these Malayans had, could not be damaged by the rain, as our guns would be. But they cannot endure to be in the rain; and it was in the evening, before the rain fell, that they assaulted the Dutch boat. — Dampier's Voya^^cs, Vol. 11. p- 175 — 7-
