all; but, being tortured, made a second confession. The
“ next morning I sent him to execution. As he went out of
our gates the Javans (who do much rejoice when they see
“ a Chinese go to execution, as also the Chinese do when
“ they see a Javan go to his death) reviled him; but he
“ would answer again, saying, The Englishmen were rich
“ and the Chinese poor, therefore why should they not steal
1 from the English if they could ? The next day the Admiral
(Sir James Lancaster) took another of them, and sent him
§ to me, who knew there was but one way with him, and
“ therefore he resolved with himself not to confess any thing
“ to us. He was found hid in a privy, and this was he that
“ put fire to our house. He was a goldsmith, and confessed
“ to the Admiral he had clipped many rials, and also coined
some counterfeits: some things he confessed to him con-
“ cerning our matter, but not much; but he would tell us
“ nothing. Wherefore, because of his sullenness, and that
“ it was he that fired us, I caused him to be burned under
“ the nails of Ins thumbs, fingers, and toes, with sharp hot
“ irons, and the nails to be tore off; and because he never
“ blinked at that, we thought that his hands and legs had
been numbed with tying, wherefore we burned him in the
“ hands, arms, shoulders, and neck, but all was one with
“ him •' tllen we burned him quite through the hands, and
“ with rasps of iron tore out the -flesh and sinews. After that
“ I caused them to knock the edges of his shin bones with
“ hot searing irons ; then I causqd cold screws of iron to be
screwed into the bones of his arms, and suddenly to be
“ snatched o u t ; after that, all the bones of his fingers and
toes to be broken with pincers: yet for all this he never
“ shed tear, no nor once turned his head aside, nor stirred
“ hand nor foot; but when we demanded any question, he
“ would put his tongue between his teeth, and strike his chin
“ upon his knees to bite it off. When all the extremity we
“ could use was but in vain, I caused him to be put fast in
“ irons again; when the amits or ants, which do greatly
“ abound there, got into his wounds and tormented him
“ worse than we had done, as we might well see by his
“ gesture. The King’s officers desired me he might be shot
1 to death. , I told them that was too good a death for such
“ a villain; and said more, that if, in our countries, a gentle-
“ man or a soldier had committed a fact worthy of death,
“ then he was shot to death, and yet he was befriended too:
“ but they held it to be the cruellest and basest death that is.
“ Wherefore, they being very importunate, in the evening
“ we led him. into the fields and made him fast to a stake.
“ The first shot carried away a piece of his arm, bone and
“ all. The next shot struck him through the breast up near
“ to the shoulder; then he, holding down his head, looked
“ upon the wound.. The third shot that was made one of
I our men had cut a bullet in three parts,, which struck upon
« his breast in a triangle, whereat he fell down as low as the
stake would give him leave: but, between our men and
“ the Flemings, they shot him almost all to pieces before
“ they left him.”'
I f then Englishmen,, who with all their vices have at all
times and. in all places established their character for humanity,
could be guilty of such, excessive barbarity towards
unprotected strangers, who among the nations of the East
z z.