136 THE END OF THE STRUGGLE self ready to come away from thence with all the rest of the factors in the Dutch ship, except two you may leave there at Amboyna to keep house until our further order.' ' Meanwhile Towerson continued his unsuspecting course. On January 1, 1623, he gave his official dinner to the little English group at Amboyna— the regular New Year's Day party which was to serve the Dutch fiscal as a ground-work for the alleged conspiracy. How far any thoughts of seizing Amboyna were from the minds of the English may be known by the letter of our president and council in March, 1622, to the Company, desiring to retire even from Batavia; by Brockedon's petition in August, 1622, for leave to re- turn home, as he could " live no longer under the inso- lence of the Dutch; " and by the orders of January, 1623, to Towerson and other outlying agencies to with- draw to Batavia with the English under their charge. Towerson, " a sincere, honest, and plain man without malice," as one of the Amboyna free burghers and a servant of the Dutch Company described him, discerned not the signs of the times, and the letter ordering him to leave Amboyna was intercepted by the Dutch gov- ernor Van Speult. So he went to his death— " that honest good man, Captain Towerson, whom I think in my conscience was so upright and honest toward all men, that he has harboured no ill will of any." Such a character is pretty sure of sympathy from the English middle classes, always indulgent to sturdy mediocrity, especially of the jovial sort. The story
