A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels Volume Ix Part 39

Once upon a time, a certain person went to gather simples among the mountains, and fell by some accident into a vale of which the sides were so steep that he was unable to get out again. In this situation, he had to look about for some means to support life, and discovered this root, of which he made trial, and found that it served him both as food and cloathing; for it preserved his body in such a temperature, that the injuries of the weather had no evil influence upon him during a residence of several hundred years. At length, by means of an earthquake, the mountains were rent, and he found a pa.s.sage from the vale to his house, whence he had been so long absent. But so many alterations had taken place during his long absence, that n.o.body would believe his story; till, on consulting the annals of his family, they found that one of them had been lost at the time he mentioned, which confirmed the truth of his relation.--This is a fable, not even credited among the Chinese, invented merely to blazon forth the virtues of this wonderful root.

--5. _Removal of Dr Cunningham to Pulo Condore, with an Account of the Rise, Progress, and Ruin of that Factory_.[334]

The English factory at Chusan was broken up in the year 1702, so that Dr Cunningham had very little time allowed him for making his proposed observations respecting China. From this place he removed to another new settlement at _Pulo Condore,_ in a small cl.u.s.ter of four or five islands, about fifteen leagues south of the west channel of the river of Camboja, usually called the j.a.panese river.[335] I am unable to say what were the advantages proposed from this factory; but, from the memoirs I have seen on the subject, this place seems to have been very ill chosen, and much worse managed. The person who had at this time the management and direction of the affairs belonging to the East India Company in this distant part of the world, was one Mr Katchpole, who, according to the usual custom of the Europeans in eastern India at this period, took into the service a certain number of Maca.s.sers or native soldiers, by whose a.s.sistance he soon constructed a small fort for the protection of the factory. So far as I can learn, the most indispensable necessaries of life, water, wood, and fish, were all that these islands ever afforded.

[Footnote 334: This and the subsequent subdivision of the section are related historically by Harris.--E.]

[Footnote 335: Pulo Condore is in lat. 8 45' N. long. 106 5' E. and the object of a factory at this place was evidently to endeavour to secure a portion of the trade of China, from which the English at this time were excluded by the arts of the Portuguese at Macao, as we learn from the Annals; as also to combine some trade with Siam, Camboja, Tsiompa, Cochin-China, and Tonquin.--E.]

The Maca.s.sers are a brave, industrious, and faithful people, to such as deal fairly with them; and on this account are highly esteemed in the Eastern Indies, more especially by the Dutch. They are, however, daring, cruel, and revengeful, if once provoked. Mr Katchpole had contracted with these men to serve for three years, at the end of which period, if they pleased, they were to receive their wages and to depart: But he, though they strictly performed their part of the agreement, broke faith with them, keeping them beyond their time against their will. In addition to this great breach in morality, he added as notorious an error in politics; for, after provoking these men so egregiously by refusing to fulfil his engagement, he still confided to them the guard of his own person and the custody of the factory. This gave them ample opportunity of revenging the ill usage they had met with, and with that ferocity which is so natural to untutored barbarians. They rose in mutiny one night, and murdered Mr Katchpole, and all who were at the time along with him in the factory. A few, who happened to lodge on the outside of the fort, hearing the cries of their friends within during the ma.s.sacre, fled from their beds to the sea-sh.o.r.e; where, by a singular interposition of Providence, they found a bark completely ready for sea, in which they embarked half naked, and put immediately to sea, just in time to escape the rage of the Maca.s.sers, who came in search of them to the sh.o.r.e, precisely when they had weighed anchor and pushed off to sea.

Dr Cunningham was one of the number who escaped on this occasion. Their navigation was attended with excessive difficulty, being exposed at the same time to incredible fatigue, and to the utmost extremity of hunger and thirst: But at length, after a tedious and difficult course of an hundred leagues, in the most wretched condition, they reached a small creek in the dominions of the king of Johor, where they were received with kindness.

--6. _Some Account of the Factory at Pulo Laut, with the Overthrow of that Factory, and of the English Trade to Borneo_.

A year or two after this ruin of the factory at Pulo Condore, the Company thought fit to order the establishment of a new factory on the coast of the great island of Borneo. On the south of that vast island, there is a small isle called Pulo Laut, having an excellent harbour. The country here is but thinly peopled, and yields nothing except rice; but, as it lies near the mouth of the great rivers which come from the pepper countries in the interior; it is extremely well situated for trade.

Between this island and the great island of Borneo, there is a channel about two miles wide in most places, narrower in some and broader in others, and having from seven to five fathoms water the whole way through. On the coast of this channel there are several rising grounds fit for building on, and which were therefore extremely proper for the situation of a factory, which, it may be presumed, induced those who had the direction of the Company's affairs, to make choice of this place.

One Captain Barry, who is said to have been a very ingenious gentleman, had the charge of establis.h.i.+ng this new factory, in which he is reported to have acted with much skill and prudence. But he died before the works were completed; and the direction of the factory devolved upon Doctor Cunningham, who came to this place after the ruin of the factory at Pulo Condore. He is said to have given himself so entirely up to his studies, that he left the care of the Company's concerns too much to the people who were under him, who were unequal to the trust, and proved the ruin of the factory. Before the fort was half finished, these people began to insult the natives of the country; and, among other wanton acts of folly, they very imprudently chose to search one of the boats belonging to the king, which was carrying a female of rank down the river. This so provoked the Bornean sovereign that he determined upon the utter destruction of the English; for which purpose he collected his forces together, amounting to about three thousand resolute men, which he embarked in above an hundred proas, and sent them down to attack the factory and unfinished fort.

There happened at this time to be two s.h.i.+ps belonging to the Company in the river, besides two merchant vessels of inconsiderable force; and as Cunningham and his people had received advice of the preparations making against them, they left their factory, taking refuge aboard the s.h.i.+ps, thinking themselves in greater security there than ash.o.r.e. When all things were in readiness for the intended a.s.sault, the native armament came down the river in the night; and, while some landed and destroyed the factory and fortifications, others attacked the s.h.i.+ps, which were fortunately prepared for their reception, the English having made fast nettings along both sides of their s.h.i.+ps, about two fathoms high above the gunnels, to prevent the enemy from boarding, and were in readiness to use their blunderbusses and pikes, to prevent them from forcing their way to the decks.

On seeing the approach of the proas towards the s.h.i.+ps, the English plied their great guns, loaded with double, round, and partridge shot, and made great carnage among the Borneans, yet this did not deter them from pus.h.i.+ng forwards and using their utmost endeavours to board. But, having got up to the gunnels, they were unable to get over the netting, and so were slaughtered with great ease by the English from the decks. Some of the a.s.sailants got in at the _head doors_ of one of the s.h.i.+ps and killed a few of the English on the forecastle, but were soon overpowered and slain. Thus, after a long and sanguinary contest, the two large s.h.i.+ps beat off the enemy with small loss; but the two little vessels were both burnt with most of their men, among whom was one Mynheer Hoogh Camber, a Dutch gentleman who had been amba.s.sador of the king of Persia, and had fled from Batavia in one of these small vessels. Some say that the English killed above fifteen hundred of the a.s.sailants in two hours, for the heat of the a.s.sault continued during that s.p.a.ce, besides many others wounded and maimed. But the English were under the necessity of abandoning the settlement at Pulo Laut.

The Bornean king or rajah thought his revenge had gone far enough in driving the English from their factory: And, finding his revenue considerably diminished by the loss of trade with the English, he sent notice to such of them as traded to Johor, and other places in the neighbourhood of Borneo, that he would still admit them to trade in his dominions on the old footing, but would never allow them or any other nation to erect forts in his territories. Several English vessels have been there since to load pepper, and were civilly treated. The Dutch also sent a s.h.i.+p there from Batavia in the year 1712; but the natives refused to have any dealings with them.

END OF THE NINTH VOLUME.