Page 40 - History of Portuguese in the Gulf_Neat

■
c
Ixxii INTRODUCTION.
Our people, although shattered and cut up, remained victorious,
and disembarked on land, where they found the barrels of the
Hollanders that they had left there to be filled with water,
which came in handy for them;1 and in the Hermitage they
found2 a written message that they had left there for two other
ships of their company, which had remained in Achem loading,
because these came from Sunda, of which we shall presently give
an account; and in the writing they gave them to understand,
that the Jaos had held them captives for six months until the
arrival of two other ships of their company, which had them set
at liberty; and the cause of their imprisonment was this.3 These
two ships, which our people found there, had gone to load at
Sunda ; and all the patacas4 that they carried were falsified, and
contained very little silver; and having bought many drugs there­
with, the Jaos came to know of the falsity of the money, wherefore
they seized all those that they found on shore, and kept them
prisoners four or five months, until there arrived two other ships
unprovided, not having one Pecce mounted ; we fought her all this
night, and gave her, as I thinke, better then two hundred shot. In
eight houres shee never made shot nor shew of regard ; by mid­
night shee had placed sixe Peeces which shee used very well, shot
us often through, and slew two of our men. So the sixteenth, in
the morning, we departed,” etc. (Voyages of John Davis, p. 156).
The difference of dates in the two accounts is due to the fact that
the Portuguese observed the New Style, and the Dutch (and English;
the Old.
1 Dos Santos says that they also found two goats, left by the Dutch,
tied at the foot of a fig-tree.
* This was on the following day, according to Dos Santos, who
landed with the captain and others, and conducted service in the
Hermitage.
3 Dos Santos, who gives a similar account of the cause of the
imprisonment of the Dutch, says that this information was obtained
from the Hollanders who called at St. Helena a few days later. He
also states, that on disinterring the sacred vessels that were kept in a
secret place there, the Portuguese found the following letter in Spanish,
left apparently by some man from one of the Dutch ships :—“ Yo Iuan
Roberto no haga mal a esta Iglesia, por que soy Christiano, y temo a
Dios, que me ha librado de muchos baxos, ado me he visto perdido en
esta viage, y ansi mas me ha librado de catiuero de la Iaoa, add
estuue captiuo seis mezes, a punto de me sacaren la vida cada dia ”
(I, Juan Roberto, have done no harm to this church, because I am a
Christian and fear God, who has delivered me from many depths [or
shoals ?] in which I have found myself lost in this voyage, and has
likewise liberated me from captivity in Jaoa, where I was a captive
six months, they being ready to take my life every day). Who this
man was I have been unable to discover.
4 Dollars (see Hobson Jobson, s.v.).
INTRODUCTION. Ixxiii
of their company, which learnt of the case, and ransomed them
by giving the Jaos other good and lawful money.1
The Dutch ships having left the island of Santa Helena, our
people at once set to work at refitting the ship, the masts, and
rigging it anew2: and on the 30th of April, five days after the
battle, there arrived at that port the ship Nossa Sen flora da Paz,
and on the 3rd of May the Conceifilo., and on the 16th the ship
of the captain-major, which, though starting from Goa, and earlier,
arrived so much later.3 And from Diogo de Sousa they learnt
the whole of the affair, and helped him to repair the damage that
the enemy had done to him. And4 on the same day that the
captain-major anchored appeared the two other Dutch ships5 that
we have said the others were expecting, which came laden with
drugs; and coming to make the anchoring-place, when they saw
our ships they proceeded to anchor at the point of the island,
1 The above rather confused statement is interesting, as it appears
to be the only proof we have that the two Zeeland ships, the Zon and
the Langebcrcque, referred to above (pp. lxvi-lxvii, lxviii), called at St.
Helena on their voyage home. In the narrative of the voyages of Van
Neck’s and Van Warwick’s fleet we are not told of any letters having
been left at St. Helena; and therefore wc may conclude that the
message was left by these two Zeeland ships for their fellow Zeelanders
in the Lecuw and Lecuiuin, who evidently knew nothing of how they
had fared in the East. The story about the bad money and the
imprisonment seems to be explained by the following details, given in
The Journall, or Dayly Register, etc. (p. 54):—“The 17. day [of
November, 1599] wee sayled thence [the mouth of the ‘fresh Ryuer*
near ‘ Saketra,’ i.e., Jakatra] towards Bantam, where two Dutch ships
lay. The 18. day wc spoke with them, they were the Long barke
[sic/] and the Sunne, which had lyne eight moneths and tenne dayes
before Bantam (and were departed from thence in the night time, not
refreshing thcmsclucs), where they had so neerely bartered all ; that
in the ende (for want of money) they trucked also the whistles from
about their neckes, and yet had not effected any great matter, for both
the ships had but 60. last of Pepper and Cloues together, and farther
were weakened 55. men.” The next day they arrived at Bantam,
were well received, and got full loads of spices.^ According to a
letter of Van Warwick’s (De Jonge, op. cit., vol. ii, p. 379), the two
Zeeland ships sailed on November 18th, 1599, for Europe, while the
two ships under Van Warwijck did not leave until January 21st, 1600.
2 Dos Santos, who gives a number of details of wonderful escapes
during the combat, says that when the enemy disappeared, about three
in the afternoon, the carpenters and caulkers set to work to repair the
damage, the ship having received seven shots between wind and
water.
3 Dos Santos, who also records the arrival of these ships, adds that
on May 15th the River Plate ship left St. Helena.
4 What follows is almost identical with the account given by Dos
Santos.
5 The Amsterdam and Utrecht, under Van Warwijck.