However, in regard to pepper, it is impossible for us to get the commerce all to ourselves; for, besides the Portuguese, the English have also undertaken the navigation to Bantam. They have their trading-posts and houses, and are trading there peacefully, while we are at war against the Portuguese. We defend Bantam and the English together, while they enjoy there the profits that cost them neither defenses, blood, nor any annoyance. [The king of Bantam is too young to negotiate with, and too much money would be spent uselessly. For the natives throughout the Indies would not hesitate to violate any treaty in any peril or to their own profit.] Besides we are at peace with the English, and it would be unjust to try to find means to exclude them from a commerce which they have already commenced. But measures can easily be taken to prevent them from entering into the commerce of other spices. In regard to pepper, we would have to make it serve as a ballast. By this means we could give it so cheaply that the other nations, finding scarcely any profit in it longer, would be obliged to cease trading in it themselves, without counting on our part our profits from the other merchandise. For, according to my opinion, we could easily attract all the commerce of nutmegs and mace. For this purpose, instead of seizing Banda, and building a fort there, which would cost considerable, and give us a bad reputation among the Indian princes, the following is what I think that we should do. As the king of Macassar is a powerful prince, whose country is densely populated, and well supplied with rice and all manner of food; and as he furnishes them to Malacca and Banda: it would be necessary to make a treaty with him, and to send him three vessels with two hundred men for his country. This number, together with the Macassar men, would be sufficient to attack Banda, and we would promise the king to deliver it into his hands, without claiming any recompense for this aid, except that no other nation but our own could load merchandise there, and that the nutmegs and mace would be taken annually at a fixed price, namely, at the selling price at the time of the expedition. [Matelief is certain that the king of Macassar will acquiesce, and would also probably be willing to build a trading-house for the Dutch. Other conditions for the security of Banda might also be imposed in the treaty.] Of the clove-trade, it is very difficult for us to render ourselves masters. We have the product of Amboina, Luho, and Cambelo; but not that yielded by the Moluccas. The only means of obtaining it is to drive the Spaniards from Ternate, and it can easily be imagined that the task is not easy. However I shall not hesitate to write here my thought concerning the matter.