Page 236 - Early English Adventurers in the Middle East_Neat

236
EARLY ENGLISH ADVENTURERS
IN THE EAST
better judgmeut in the affair.” The Council had loft too
much to him and apparently had not dared to add any-
thing to the documents that he had prepared. “We
think,” Carpentier went on to say in some significant
sentences, “ the rigour of justice should have been miti­
gated somewhat with Dutch clemency (with considera­
tion to a nation who is our neighbour), especially if such
could be done without prejudice to the state and the
dignity of justice, as we think could have been done
here.” “It is,” the Governor-General concluded im-
pressively, “ a bad war where all remain.”
Months afterwards, when the facts of “ the Massacre *
were known in England, the country was stirred to its
The Lords of the Privy Council were moved to
depths.
tears at the relation of the sufierings of the unhappy
Englishmen. The King, though not usually given to
emotion, “ took it very much to heart.” Even those who
wished well to the Dutch “ could not hear or speak of it
without indignation,” while the facts were so damning
that “ none in the Assembly of the States General (in
Holland) approved the cruel tortures of the bloody execu­
tions.” " For my part,” wrote Chamberlain, the London
1 historian, to Carleton, the English ambassador at the
I Hague, <c if there were no wiser than I, we should stay or
E arrest the first Indian ship that comes in our way and hang
D up upon Dover cliffs as many as we should find faulty or
actors in this business and then dispute the matter after-
ards . for there is no other course to be held with such
I other 61 °f men’ aS neitber re8ard law nor justice, nor any
■ their God? °f GqUity °r humanit?’ but only make gain
I The directors
of the East India Company took, natut-

(]
(!