English ; and both vilified the Spaniards and Portuguese,
while they committed acts of piracy and
plunder upon the Asiatic traders, who had the
temerity to venture upon a competition with them.
All the nations of the Archipelago, or those Asiatic
nations having an intercourse with it, whose governments
had vigour enough to resist their encroachments,
either expelled them from their country,
and refused to hold any intercourse with persons
so little worthy of confidence, or placed that
intercourse under the severest limitations. It will
be a matter of curiosity, as well as instruction, to
quote a few examples of the conduct pursued by
the monopoly companies towards the native powers,
and of the measures taken by the latter in consequence.
Within fifteen years of their first appearance
in the seas of the Archipelago, the English
had established factories at Patani in the Peninsula,
at Achin, Ticao, and Jambi in Sumatra,
at Bantam and Jacatra in Java, at Suceadana and
Banjarmassin in Borneo, in the Banda isles, at Macassar
in Celebes, in Siam, and in Japan. At all
these, by their own recorded acknowledgment, the
company was carrying on a gainful trade, of which
they furnish us with the particulars. In after periods
they formed establishments at Queda, Ligore,
and Jehore, in the Peninsula, at Passumman, Sil-
lebar, and Bencoolen, in Sumatra, at Japara in
Java, at Balambangan in Borneo, at Camboja, at
Cochin-China, at Pulo Condore, at Formosa, and in
China at'Chusan, Amoy, and Macao. From a few
of these they were expelled by the rivalry of the
Dutch, but from the greater number directly by
the natives, and solely on account of their misdemeanour
and arrogance, and- the utter incompatibility
of their claims with the rights and independence
of those natives, who had hospitably received
them. One of the most flagrant examples of their
misconduct was displayed at Banjarmassin, in Borneo,
in the year 1706. Their settlement at Pulo
Condore had just been cut off by their own native
soldiers, at the instigation of the king of Cochin-
China, naturally impatient of their neighbour-
hood, when they formed one at Banjarmassin.
Captain Hamilton gives the following account of
the causes and circumstances of their being driven
out of the latter: “ Their factory was not half finished
before they began to domineer over the natives,
who past in their boats up and down the river,
which so provoked the king, that he swore
revenge, and accordingly gathered an army, and
shipped it on large prams, to execute his rage on
the factory and shipping that lay in the river. The
company had two ships, and there were two others
that belonged to private merchants, and I was
pretty deeply concerned in one of them. The
factory receiving advice of the king’s design, and
the preparations he had made, left their factory