A remonstrance of the Directors of the Netherlands East India Company,

A$9,500 · Offered by Douglas Stewart Fine Books

presented to the Lords States Generall of the united Provinces, in defence of the said Company, touching the bloudy proceedings against the English Merchants, executed at Amboyna. Together, with the Acts of the Processe, against the sayd English, and the Reply of the English East India Company, to the said Remonstrance and Defence. Published by Authority. London : printed by John Dawson, for the East India Company, 1632. Three parts in one volume, small quarto, modern panelled calf in period style, spine in compartments with gilt decoration and lettering; pp. [8], 29, [1 blank]; [2 separate title-leaf], 38; 47; [1]; with a full-page woodcut depicting the torture of one of the English merchants at Ambon, bound in at the end of the preliminaries (in effect, as a frontispiece to the first part); main title with woodcut armorial device, woodcut initials, head- and tailpieces; some mild browning, a fine copy. Together, the three parts of this work provide a summarised account of the so-called Amboyna (or Ambon) massacre, a watershed event that occurred at a time of growing rivalry between the English and Dutch East India Companies over control of the lucrative spice trade. In early 1623, at the Dutch garrison of Fort Victoria on the island of Amboyna in the Moluccas, the local Dutch governor ordered the arrest of ten English merchants suspected of plotting to take over the garrison; they confessed, under torture, and were executed in February 1623. The English reacted by branding

• Binding: Hardcover

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