In conformity to this character of the Japanese is the account given by Floris, cape merchant of the “Globe,” an English ship, which touched at Siam in 1612, while performing the voyage mentioned Vol. I, p. 207 of the text. A short time previously, two hundred and eighty Japanese, the slave-soldiers of a principal Siamese noble, who had been put to death by the royal authority, had revenged their master by seizing on the king of Siam, whom they compelled to subscribe to such terms as they dictated, “after which, they had departed with great treasure, the Siamese not being able to right themselves.”[132] The good service rendered to the Portuguese by Japanese mercenaries at the siege of Malacca, in 1606, is mentioned in the text, Vol. I, p. 182. It appears, from a curious tract concerning the Philippines, preserved by Thevenot, that when De Silva, governor of those islands, undertook, in 1608, to drive the Dutch from the Moluccas, he was obliged to send to Japan for saltpetre, metal, and even for founders to cast cannon. A body of Japanese formed, in 1619, a part of the Dutch garrison in their fort at Jacatara (named about that time Batavia), while besieged by the natives on the island, and blockaded at the same time by an English squadron, as mentioned Vol. I, p. 237 of the text. Of the Japanese settled on the island of Amboyna, and involved with the English in the massacre there, mention is made Vol. I, p. 240. Haganaar, who was at Cambodia in 1637, found among the inhabitants of that city seventy or eighty families of Japanese, whom he describes as not daring to return to their own country, with which, however, they carried on trade, by means of Chinese ships. They were in great favor with the king of Cambodia, to whom they had rendered valiant assistance in suppressing a dangerous rebellion, and were greatly feared by the other inhabitants of the city, whether Chinese or Malays. To this day one of the channels of the great river of Cambodia is known as “Japanese river”—a name given, indeed, on some maps, to the main river itself, and probably taking its origin from this Japanese colony.