Page:Early English adventurers in the East (1917).djvu/210

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EARLY ENGLISH ADVENTURERS IN THE EAST

Coen lost no time in re-establishing the Dutch position at Jakatra. Early in March, a few weeks after the retirement of the English, he appeared off the town with sixteen ships and having re-occupied the fort, caused it, on March 12, to be christened Batavia. From this day may be said to date the commencement not merely of the Dutch dominion in Java, but of their supremacy in the Malay Archipelago.

The famous Dutch Governor-General was not a man to do things by halves. When he had consolidated his position at Batavia he turned his thoughts to other parts where the opportunity offered of asserting Dutch power. Amongst the first to fall a victim to his policy of "Thorough' was poor Jourdain, the enterprising commander who did so much to promote the active English policy in the Moluccas. Jourdain in April, 1619, had taken charge at Madras of two ships, the Hound and the Sampson, which were dispatched by the authorities in India to re-establish an English factory at Patani on the eastern side of the Malay Peninsula. He piloted them to their destination in safety; but in July, some little time after their arrival, they were attacked while at anchor by three large Dutch ships, which entered the port for that purpose. A spirited fight was maintained by the Engllsh ships for a considerable period. At length when eleven of the men of the Sampson had been killed and thirty- five wounded and the Hound had also lost a number of men Jourdain caused a flag of truce to be raised with the object of parleying about peace.

As the negotiations were proceeding between Thomas Hackwell, the master, and the Dutch commander, Jourdain showed himself near the mainmast on the gratings, and the Dutch "espying him most treacherously and