Page 206 - Early English Adventurers in the Middle East_Neat

206 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 retire­
ment of the English, he appeared off the town with six­
teen 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 posi­
tion 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 dis­
patched 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 ;
i
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 English 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 grat­
ings, and the Dutch “ espying him most treacherously and