true, genuine account of our whole voyage, progress, and design; for we might many ways have convinced any reasonable creature, that we were not pirates; the goods we had on board, the course we steered, our frankly showing ourselves, and entering into such and such ports; even our very manner, the force we had, the number of men, the few arms, little ammunition, short provisions; all these would have served to convince any men that we were no pirates. The opium, and other goods we had on board, would make it appear the ship had been at Bengal; the Dutchmen, who, it was said, had the names of all the men that were in the ship, might easily see that we were a mixture of English, Portuguese, and Indians, and but two Dutchmen on board. These, and many other particular circumstances, might have made it evident to the understanding of any commander, whose hands we might fall into, that we were no pirates.

But fear, that blind useless passion, worked another way, and threw us into the vapours: it bewildered our understandings, and set the imagination at work, to form a thousand terrible things that, perhaps, might never happen. We first supposed, as indeed every body had related to us, that the seamen on board the english and dutch ships, but especially the Dutch, were so enraged at the name of a pirate, and especially at our beating off their boats, and escaping, that they would not give themselves leave to inquire, whether we were pirates or no; but would execute us off hand, as we call it, without giving us any room for a defence. We reflected, that there was really so much apparent evidence before them, that they would scarce inquire after any more; as, first, the ship was certainly the same, and that some of the seamen among them knew her, and had been on board her; and, secondly, that when we had intelligence at the river Cambodia, that they were coming down to examine us, we fought their boats and fled; so that we made no doubt but that they were as fully satisfied of our being pirates, as we were satisfied of the contrary: and I often said, I knew not but I should have been apt to have taken the like circumstances for evidence, if the tables were turned, and my case was theirs, and have made no scruple of cutting all the crew to pieces, without believing, or perhaps considering, what they might have to offer in their defence.

But let that be how it will, those were our apprehensions, and both my partner and I too scarce slept a night without dreaming of halters and yard-arms, that is to say, gibbets: of fighting, and being taken; of killing, and being killed; and one night I was in such a fury in my dream, fancying the Dutchmen had boarded us, and I was knocking one of their seamen down, that I struck my doubled fist against the side of the cabin I lay in with such a force, as wounded my hand most grievously, broke my knuckles, and cut and bruised the flesh, so that it not only awaked me out of my sleep, but I was once afraid I should have lost two of my fingers.

Another apprehension I had, was, of the cruel usage we should meet with from them, if we fell into their hands. Then the story of Amboyna* came into

AMBOYNA :-This is the largest of those denominated "clove islands." It was discovered by the Portuguese about 1511. In 1564, they obtained possession of the island, which they retained until about 1607, when the Dutch made themselves masters of it, and of the neighbouring isles. At this time the English had a factory on it, and were involved in frequent disputes with the Dutch. In 1619 a treaty was concluded between the two nations, which stipulated that the Moluccas, Amboyna, and the Banda isles, should be common to both; that the English should have one-third of the produce; and that each should contribute to the defense of the islands in proportion to the benefit received. The conduct of the Dutch towards the English, soon after the treaty took place, was so oppressive and over-bearing, that, in 1622, orders were sent from England to withdraw the factory from Amboyna, and for the factors to return to Batavia, It was at this period that the dutch colonial government projected those proceedings which have remained so strongly impressed in the memory of the english nation, under the just denomination of "the massacre of Amboyna.". On receiving in England positive accounts of the transaction, the E. I. Company made application to the King to interpose bis authority with the States-general of the United-provinces, that redress might be obtain Ꭰ Ꭰ

my head, and how the Dutch might, perhaps, torture us, as they did our coun trymen there, and make some of our men, by extremity of torture, confess those crimes which they never were guilty of; own themselves, and all of us, to be pirates, and so they would put us to death, with a formal appearance of justice; and that they might be tempted to do this, for the gain of our ship and cargo, which was worth four or five thousand pounds, put altogether.

These things tormented me and my partner too, night and day; nor did we consider that the captains of ships have no authority to act thus; and if we had surrendered prisoners to them, they could not answer the destroying us, or torturing us, but would be accountable for it when they came into their own country; this, I say, gave me no satisfaction, for if they will act thus with us, what advantage would it be to us, that they would be called to account for it; or, if we were first to be murdered, what satisfaction would it be to us to have them punished when they came home?

I cannot refrain taking notice here what reflections I now had upon the past variety of my particular circumstances; how hard I thought it was, that'I, who had spent forty years in a life of continued difficulties, and was, at last, come, as it were, to the port or haven which all men drive at, viz. to have rest and plenty, should be a volunteer in new sorrows, by my own unhappy choice; and that I, who had escaped so many dangers in my youth, should now come to be hanged in my old age, and in so remote a place, for a crime I was not in the least inclined to, much less guilty of, and in a place and circumstance, where inno cence was not like to be any protection at all to me.

After these thoughts, something of religion would come in, and I would be considering that this seemed to me to be a disposition of immediate Providence, and I ought to look upon it, and submit to it, as such.

In its turn, natural courage would sometimes take its place, and then I would be talking myself up to vigorous resolutions: that I would not be taken, to be barbarously used, by a parcel of merciless wretches in cold blood; that it was much better to have fallen into the hands of the savages, who were men-eaters, and who, I was sure, would feast upon me when they had taken me, than by those who would, perhaps, glut their rage upon me by inhuman tortures and bar barities; that, in the case of the savages, I always resolved to die fighting to the last gasp; and why should I not do so now, seeing it was much more dreadful to me, at least, to think of falling into these men's hands, than ever it was to think of being eaten by men; for the savages, give them their due, would not eat a man till he was dead, and killed him first, as we do a bullock; but that these men had many arts beyond the cruelty of death. Whenever these thoughts prevailed, I was sure to put myself into a kind of fever with the agitations of a

ed, and that the guilty persons who had been instrumental in this disgraceful transaction might be punished. A committee was appointed to take the business into consideration, by whom the king was advised to adopt strong measures for obtaining from the govern ment of Holland such satisfaction for the same as might be consistent with his justice and honour, and such a compensation as the interests of his subjects required: in conformity to which advice, an immediate Order of Council was issued, to seize all dutch east-india ships, and to detain them till reparation should be made. This measure brought a conciliatory, but not satisfactory answer, from the Dutch: no farther steps were then taken; and the death of King JAMES L., which happened early in 1625, put an end to the business. The state of the public mind was such, that the dutch merchants resident in London applied unto the Privy council for protection from the dan gers to which they declared themselves exposed from the numerous publications which were disseminated, explanatory of the cruelties the English had experienced in the EastIndies, more particularly at Amboyna. They represented, that a picture of the mas sacre at this place had been drawn, which was calculated to inflame the public mind, and bring its vengeance on them. This picture, the E. I. Company acknowledged to the Privy-council had been painted by the Company's order, to be preserved in its house as a perpetual memorial of treacherous and cruel rivality.

supposed fight: my blood would boil, and my eyes sparkle, as if I was engaged; and I always resolved that I would take no quarter at their hands; but even, at last, if I could resist no longer, I would blow up the ship, and all that was in her, and leave them but little booty to boast of.

By how much the greater weight, the anxieties, and perplexities, of these things were to our thoughts while we were at sea, by so much the greater was our satisfaction when we saw ourselves on shore; and my partner told me he dreamed that he had a very heavy load upon his back, which he was to carry up a hill, and found that he was not able to stand long under it; but the portuguese pilot came and took it off his back, and the hill disappeared, the ground before him showing all smooth and plain. And truly it was so; we were all like men who had a load taken off their backs.

For my part, I had a weight taken off from my heart, that I was not able and longer to bear; and, as I said above, we resolved to go no more to sea in that ship. When we came on shore, the old pilot, who was now our friend, got us a lodging, and a warehouse for our goods, which, by the way, was much the same: it was a little house, or hut, with a large house joining to it, all built with canes, and palisadoed round with large canes, to keep out pilfering thieves, of which, it seems, there were not a few in the country. However, the magistrates allowed us also a little guard, and we had a soldier, with a kind of halberd or halfpike, who stood sentinel at our door, to whom we allowed a pint of rice, and a little piece of money, about the value of three-pence per day, so that our goods were kept very safe.

The fair, or mart, usually kept in this place, had been over some time: however, we found that there were three or four junks in the river, and two Japanese, I mean ships from Japan, with goods which they had bought in China, and were not gone away, having japanese merchants on shore.

The first thing our old portuguese pilot did for us, was, to bring us acquainted with three missionary* romish priests, who were in the town, and who had been

* MISSIONARY:-(See page 308.) D'ALEMBERT, speaking of this class of persons, relates, that one who had spent twenty years upon a mission in Canada, did not believe even the existence of a God. Nevertheless this atheist had numerous times run the ha zard of his life in defence of that religion which he preached among the savages. A friend, well acquainted with his real principles, once expressed to him much surprise at the warmth of his zeal; to whom the missionary observed: "Ah! you have no idea of the pleasure there is in having twenty-thousand people listen to you; and in persuading them what you do not believe an atom of yourself." The darling passion in the soul of every missionary is, not to teach the great leading truths of the christian faith, but to enforce the little paltry modification and distinction which he first taught from his own tub. And, then, what a way of teaching christianity is this! There are five sects, if not six, now employed as missionaries every one instructing the Hindoos in their own particular method of interpreting the Scriptures; and when these have completely suc ceeded, the church of England is to step in, and convert them all over again to its own doctrines. There is, indeed, plausible scheme, The missionaries complain of intolerance. A weasel might as well very fine varnish of probity over this ingenious and complain of intolerance when he is throttled for sucking eggs. Toleration for their own opinions,-toleration for their domestic worship, for their private groans and convulsions, they possess in the fullest extent; but who ever heard of toleration for intolerance? Who ever before heard men cry out that they were persecuted because they might not insult the religion, shock the feelings, irritate the passions of their fellow-creatures, and throw a whole colony into bloodshed and confusion? The Editor does not say that a man is not an object of pity who tormented himself from a sense of duty, but that he is not so great an object of pity as one equally tormented by the tyranny of another, and with, out any sense of duty to support him. These men talk of the loss of our possessions in India, as if it made the argument against them only more or less strong; whereas, in the Editor's estimation, it makes the argument against them conclusive, and shuts up the case. Two men possess a cow, and they quarrel violently how they shall manage this cow ;they will, surely, both of them (if they have a particle of common sense) agree, that there is an absolute necessity for preventing the cow from running away. It is not only the loss of India that is in question,-but, how will it be lost?-by the massacre of ten or twenty thousand English-by the blood of our sons and brothers, who have been toiling so many years to return to their native country. But what is all this to a ferocious methodist. What care brothers BARREL or BAREBONES for us and our colonies? If it were possible to invent a method by which a few men, sent from a distant country, could hold such masses of people as the Hindoos in subjection, that method would be the institution of castes. There is no institution which can so effectually curb the ambition of genius, reconcile the individual more completely to his station, and reduce the varieties of human character to such a state of insipid and monotonous tameness; and yet the religion which destroys castes is said to render our empire in India more certain! It may be our duty to make the Hindoos christians,-that is another argument: but, that we shall by so doing strengthen our empire, the writer of this denies. What signifies identity of religion to a question of this kind? Diversity of bodily colour, and of language, would soon overpower this consideration. Make the Hindoos enterprising, active, and reasonable, as yourselves,-destroy the eternal track in which they have moved for ages, and, in a moment, they would sweep you off the face of the earth. Let us ask, too, if the Bible be universally diffused in Hindostan, what must be the astonishment of the natives to find that we are forbidden to rob, muṛder, and steal?—we who, in fifty years, have extended our empire from a few acres about Madras, over the whole peninsula, and sixty millions of people, and exemplified in our public conduct every crime of which human nature is capable. What matchless impudence to follow up such practice with such precepts! If we have common prudence, let us keep the gospel at home, and tell them that MACHIAVEL is our prophet, and the god of the Manicheans our god. There is nothing which disgusts more, than the familiarity which these impious coxcombs affect with the ways and designs of Provi dence. Every man, now-a-days, is an Amos or a MALACHI. One rushes out of his chambers and tells us we are beaten by the enemy because we do not abolish the slave trade. Another assures us that we have no chance of victory till India is evangelised. The new christians are now come to speak of the ways of their Creator with as much conf

there some time, converting the people to Christianity; but we thought they made but poor work of it, and made them but sorry Christians when they had done. However that was not our business. One of these was a Frenchman, whom they called Father Simon: he was a jolly, well-conditioned man, very free in his conversation, not seeming so serious and grave as the other two did; one of whom was a

dence as they would of the plans of an earthly ruler. We remember when the ways of God to man were gazed upon with trembling humility,-when they were called inscrutable, when piety looked to another scene of existence for the true explanation of this ambiguous and distressing world. We were taught in our childhood that this was true religion; but it turns out now to be nothing but atheism and infidelity. When the tenacity of the Hindoos, on the subject of their religion, is adduced as a reason against the success of the missions, the friends to this undertaking are always fond of reminding us how patiently the Hindoos submitted to the religious persecution and butchery of TIPPOO. The inference from such citations is truly alarming. It is the imperious duty of government to watch some of these men most narrowly. There is nothing of which they are not capable. And what, after all, did TIPPOO effect in the way of conversion? How many Mohamedans did he make? There was all the carnage of MEDEA's kettle, and none of the transformation, Hindoos of their caste, indeed; and cut them off from all the benefits of their religion. He deprived multitudes of That he did, and we may do, by violence: but, did he make Mohamedans,-or shall we make Christians? This, however, it seems, is a matter of pleasantry. To make a poor Hindoo hateful to himself and his kindred, and to fix a curse upon him to the end of his days!-This, no doubt, may be very entertaining; and particularly to the friends of toleration. But the Editor's ideas of comedy have been formed in another school. He is dull enough to think, too, that it is more innocent to exile pigs, than to offend conscience, and destroy human happiness. The scheme of baptizing with beef broth is about as brutal and preposterous, as the assertion that you may vilify the gods and priests of the Hindoos with safety, provided you do not meddle with their turbans and toupees (which are cherished solely on a principle of religion), is silly and contemptible. After all, if the Mohamedan did persecute the Hindoo with impunity, is that any precedent of safety to a government that offends every feeling, both of Mohamedan and Hindoo, at the same time? You have a tiger and a buffalo in the same enclosure; and the tiger drives the buffalo before him;-is it, therefore, prudent in you to do that which will irritate them both, and bring their united strength upon you? In answer to all the low cant of certain authors the Editor has only to reply, that he is a sincere friend to the instruction of the Hindoos. He admits the hindoo religion to be full of follies and enormities ;-he thinks religious instruction a great duty;-and should think conversion, if it could be effected by mild persuasion, and, above all, by good example, a great blessing: but his opinion of the missionaries, and of their employers, is such, that he firmly believes,in less than twenty years, for the conversion of a few degraded wretches, who would be neither methodists nor Hindoos, they would infallibly produce the massacre of every European in India; the loss of our settlements; and consequently of the chance of that slow, solid, and temperate, introduction of christianity, which the superiority of the european character may ultimately effect in the eastern world. The Editor recommends the following answer of Lord MACARTNEY, to a charge of proselytizing, to the attention of certain well-disposed persons in this island, who have conceived so earnest a desire for the conversion of our eastern subjects:-" To this, I, [the ambassador] replied: that, whatever might be the practice of some Europeans, the English never attempted to dispute, or disturb, the worship or tenets of others, being persuaded that the Supreme Governor of the universe was equally pleased with the homage of all his creatures, when proceeding from sincere devotion, whether according to one mode or another, of the various religions which he permitted to be published: that the English came to China with no such views, as was evident from their merchants at Canton and Macao, having no priests or chaplains belonging to them as the other Europeans had; and that so far from an idea of that kind entering into my mind, or my commission, I had not, in my whole train, any person of the clerical character, and that it was such persons only who were employed as the instruments of conversion; that it was true, as stated in the letter, the English had been anciently of the same religion as the Portuguese and the other missionaries, and had adopted another; but that one of the principal differences between us and them, was, our not having the same zeal for making proselytes which they bad,"