A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 08Kerr, Robert
History
A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 08
Kerr, Robert
Voyages and travels
About one o'clock that same afternoon, while our general sat on a bench
at our gate, conversing with a Portuguese, a drunken Dutch swab came and
sat himself down between them, on which our general gave him a box in
the ear and thrust him away. Some of his comrades came presently round
our gate, drawing their knives and _sables_, [hangers,] and began to
swagger. Taking the butt-ends of our pikes and halberts, and some faggot
sticks, we drove them to an arrack house, where they shut the door upon
us; but we forced it open, knocked some of them down, and carried them
prisoners to our general. Soon after another troop of Hollanders came
down the street to take part with their comrades, on whom we laid such
load that they took to their heels, some being knocked down, and many
having their pates pitifully broken, while others had to run through a
miry ditch to escape us. The master of their admiral had occasioned this
tumult, as he had gone from ship to ship, desiring the men to go armed
on shore and kill all the English they could meet: and when some of our
people were going on board the Dutch ships, some Englishmen they had in
their ships called out to them not to come on board, as orders had been
given to slay as many English as they could, on board or on shore. These
frays were much wondered at by all foreigners in Bantam, that we should
dare to go to blows with the Hollanders, who had seven large tall ships
in the road, while we had but two. None of our men met with any harm in
this affray, except Mr Saris, one of our merchants, who got a cut on his
fore-finger with a hanger.
At the end of this fray, the Dutch general came to our house with a
great guard of captains, merchants, and others, and being met in a
similar manner in the street by our general, was invited into our
house. When the cause of this affray was reported to the Dutch general,
he approved of what we had done. When some of his people complained that
their men bore all the blows, as was apparent by their bloody pates and
shoulders, the Dutch general said he saw plainly the fault lay with his
men, and he would take order to prevent so many of his men coming on
shore in future. After much talk, a banquet of sweetmeats was served,
the Dutch general took a kindly leave of ours, and all the Dutch and
English merchants shook hands and parted.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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