the evening that all the women were to suffer the same
death. Their children were to be slaves to the imperial
family.
On such ridiculous surmises was the Chinese chief dragged
to the stadt-house, where the most horrid tortures were employed
for the purpose of, extorting from him the confession
of a crime which it had never entered into his mind to commit;
and, at the same time, about five hundred of this nation
were thrown into prison. The Dutch guards were
doubled; and, while the work of torture was going on, a
fire, unluckily for the Chinese, broke out in that quarter of
the suburbs which was particularly inhabited by them. This
accident, occurring at the distance of half a mile without the
walls, was nevertheless construed into a malicious intention
to set. fire to the whole city. The gates were doubly guarded,
the half-cast burghers were armed, the soldiers drawn out,
and the sailors landed from the ships in the road. The
Chinese were ordered, by proclamation, to confine themselves
to their houses; but terror overcoming their discretion, and
feaiful of being murdered within doors, they rushed forth to
meet their fate in the-streets. The horrid tragedy now began,
and neither age nor sex could avail in preserving the
victims from assassination. About four hundred who had
fled to their hospital, and five hundred who had been imprisoned,
were speedily put to death. Numbers without the
city, who had hastened to the gates to learn what was doing
within, were set upon by the soldiers and put to death.
Within, the streets ran with blood.
No sooner had the work of destruction ended than that of
plunder began. The soldiers and sailors were seen scrambling
among the dead bodies, their hats and pockets loaded with
dollars, quarrelling for the spoil, fighting, maiming, and
murdering one another. This extraordinary affair took place
on the 9th of October; the whole of the 10th was a day of
plunder; and on the 11th they began to remove out of the
streets the dead bodies, the interment of which employed them
eight days. The number said to have perished, according
to the Dutch account, amounts to more than twelve thousand
souls. Having thus completed one of the most inhuman and
apparently causeless transactions that ever disgraced a
civilized people, they had the audacity to proclaim a public
thanksgiving to the God of mercy for their happy deliverance
from the hands of the heathen.
While the Dutch, in their public records; endeavour to
justify this atrocious act on the plea of necessity, they make
the following memorable observation : “ I t is remarkable that
“ this people, notwithstanding their great numbers, offered
“ not the least resistance,., but suffered themselves to be led
“ as sheep to the slaughter.” For my own part, when I reflect
on the timid character of the Chinese, their want of
confidence in each other, and their strong aversion to the
shedding of human blood; and when I compare their situation
in Batavia with that of the Hottentots in the colony of
the Cape of Good Hope, where every little irregularity is
magnified into a plot against the government, I cannot forbear
giving a decided opinion that these people were innocently
murdered. The consequences to the Dutch proved