protected on the exposed sides with boxes, casks, and bags filled with
soil, a heavy fire was opened, by which the parapet of the bastion Santo
Antonio was broken down, but it was repaired at night by the defenders,
the women and others incapable of bearing arms giving assistance in this
labour. The musketeers on the walls, in return, caused some loss to
their opponents by shooting any who exposed themselves. The Portuguese
historian makes special mention of one Dutch officer in a suit of white
armour, who went about recklessly in full view, encouraging his men, and
apparently regardless of danger, until he was killed by a musket ball.
[Sidenote: Second Siege of Mozambique.]
The trenches were at length within thirty paces of the bastion São
Gabriel, and a battery was constructed there, which could not be injured
by the cannon on the fortress owing to their great elevation, while from
it the walls could be battered with twenty-eight pound shot as long as
the artillerymen took care not to show themselves to the musketeers on
the ramparts. The Dutch commander then proposed a parley and D’Ataide
having consented, he demanded the surrender of the fortress. He stated
that the Portuguese could expect no assistance from either Europe or
India, as the mother country was exhausted and the viceroy Dom Martim
Affonso de Castro had been defeated in a naval engagement, besides which
nearly all the strongholds of the East were lost to them. It would
therefore be better to capitulate while it could be done in safety than
to expose the lives of the garrison to the fury of men who would carry
the place by storm. Further, even if the walls proved too massive for
cannon, hunger must soon reduce the fortress, as there could not be more
than three months’ provisions in it. The Portuguese replied with taunts
and bravado, and defied the besiegers to do their worst. They would have
no other intercourse with rebels, they said, than that of arms.
During the night of the 17th some of the garrison made a sortie for the
purpose of destroying a drawbridge, which they effected, and then
retired, after having killed two men according to their own account,
though only having wounded one according to the Dutch statement. A
trench was now made close up to the wall of the bastion São Gabriel, and
was covered with movable shields of timber of such thickness that they
could not be destroyed by anything thrown upon them from the ramparts.
During the night of the 29th, however, the garrison made a second
sortie, in which they killed five Hollanders and wounded many more, and
on the following day they succeeded in destroying the wooden shields by
fire.
[Sidenote: Historical Sketches.]
In the meantime fever and dysentery had attacked Van Caerden’s people,
and the prospect was becoming gloomy in the extreme. The fire from the
batteries and ships had not damaged the walls of the fortress below the
parapet, and sickness was increasing so fast that the Dutch commander
could not wait for famine to give him the prize. He therefore resolved
to raise the siege, and on the 6th of May he removed his cannon.
War between nations of different creeds in those days was carried on in
a merciless manner. On the 7th of May Van Caerden wrote to Captain
d’Ataide that he intended to burn and destroy all the churches,
convents, houses, and palm groves on the island and the buildings and
plantations on the mainland, unless they were ransomed; but offered to
make terms if messengers were sent to him with that object. A truce was
entered into for the purpose of correspondence, and six Hollanders
dressed in Spanish costume went with a letter to the foot of the wall,
where it was fastened to a string and drawn up. D’Ataide declined the
proposal, however, and replied that he had no instructions from his
superiors, nor intention of his own, except to do all that was possible
with his weapons. He believed that if he ransomed the town on this
occasion, he would only expose it to similar treatment every time a
strong Dutch fleet should pass that way.
Van Caerden then burned all the boats, canoes, and houses, cut down all
the cocoa-nut trees, sent a party of men to the mainland, who destroyed
everything of value that they could reach there, and finally, just
before embarking he set fire to the Dominican convent and the church of
São Gabriel. What was more to be deplored, adds the Portuguese historian
Barbuda, “the perfidious heretics burned with abominable fury all the
images that were in the churches, after which they treated them with a
thousand barbarous indignities.” The walls of the great church and of
some other buildings were too massive to be destroyed by the flames, but
everything that was combustible was utterly ruined.
[Sidenote: Retirement of Van Caerden.]
On the morning of the 16th of May, before daylight, the Dutch fleet set
sail. As the ships were passing Fort São Sebastião every gun that could
be got to bear was brought into use on both sides, when the _Zierikzee_
had her tiller shot away, and ran aground. Her crew and the most
valuable effects on board were rescued, however, by the boats of the
rest of the fleet, though many men were wounded by the fire from the
fort. The wreck was given to the flames.
In the second attempt to get possession of Mozambique the Dutch lost
forty men, either killed by the enemy or carried off by fever, and they
took many sick and wounded away. The Portuguese asserted that they had
only thirteen men killed during the siege, and they magnified their
slain opponents to over three hundred.
After his arrival in India Van Caerden obtained possession of a couple
of Portuguese forts of small importance, but on the 17th of September
1608 he was taken prisoner in a naval battle, and was long detained in
captivity.
As soon as their opponents were out of sight of Mozambique the
Portuguese set about repairing the damage that had been done. In this
they were assisted by the crews of three ships, under command of Dom
Jeronymo Coutinho, that called on their way from Lisbon to Goa. The
batteries were removed, the trenches were levelled, the walls of the
ruined Dominican convent were broken down, and the fortress was repaired
and provided with a good supply of food and munitions of war. Its
garrison also was strengthened with one hundred soldiers landed from the
ships. The inhabitants of the town returned to the ruins of their former
habitations, and endeavoured to make new homes for themselves. These
efforts to retrieve their disasters had hardly been made when the
island was attacked by another and more formidable fleet.
[Sidenote: Historical Sketches.]
It consisted of the ships _Geunieerde Provintien_, _Hollandia_,
_Amsterdam_, _Roode Leeuw met Pylen_, _Middelburg_, _Zeelandia_,
_Delft_, _Rotterdam_, _Hoorn_, _Arend_, _Paauw_, _Valk_, and
_Griffioen_, carrying in all between eighteen and nineteen hundred men,
and was under the command of Pieter Willemszoon Verhoeff, an officer who
had greatly distinguished himself after Admiral Heemskerk’s death in the
famous battle in Gibraltar Bay. Verhoeff left the Netherlands on the
22nd of December 1607, and after a long stay at the island of St. Helena
where he waited for the westerly winds to take him past the Cape of Good
Hope, on the 28th of July 1608 arrived at Mozambique. He was under the
impression that Van Caerden had certainly obtained possession of the
fortress, and his object was to lie in wait for Portuguese ships in the
Channel; but he was undeceived when his signals were answered with
cannon balls and a flag of defiance was hoisted over the ramparts.
In the port were lying four coasting vessels and a carrack with a
valuable cargo on board, ready to sail for Goa. In endeavouring to
escape, the carrack ran aground under the guns of the fort, where the
Dutch got possession of her, and made thirty-four of the crew prisoners.
These were removed, but before much of the cargo could be got out the
Portuguese from the fortress made a gallant dash, retook the carrack,
and burned her to the water’s edge. Two of the coasters were made
prizes, the other two were in a position where they could not be
attacked.
Within a few hours of his arrival Verhoeff landed a strong force, and
formed a camp on the site of the destroyed Dominican convent. Next
morning he commenced making trenches towards the fortress, by digging
ditches and filling bags with earth, of which banks were then made. The
Portuguese of the town had retired within the fortress in such haste
that they were unable to remove any of their effects, and the blacks, as
during the preceding siege, were now sent over to the mainland to be out
of the way. Some of the ships were directed to cruise off the port, the
others were anchored out of cannon range. A regular siege of the
fortress was commenced.
[Sidenote: _Third Siege of Mozambique._]
In the mode of attack this siege differed little from that by Van
Caerden, as trenches and batteries were made in the same manner and
almost in the same places. But there were some incidents connected with
it that deserve to be mentioned. At its commencement an accident
occurred in the fortress, which nearly had disastrous consequences. A
soldier, through carelessness, let a lighted fuse fall in a quantity of
gunpowder, and by the explosion that resulted several men were killed
and a fire was kindled which for a short time threatened the destruction
of the storehouses, but which was extinguished before much harm was
done.
On the second day after the batteries were in full working order the
wall of the fortress between the bastions Santo Antonio and São Gabriel
was partly broken down, and, according to the Portuguese account, a
breach was opened through which a storming party might have entered.
“If,” says the historian Barbuda, “they had been Portuguese, no doubt
they would have stormed; but as the Dutch are nothing more than good
artillerymen, and beyond this are of no account except to be burned as
desperate heretics, they had not courage to rush through the ruin of the
wall.” That this was said of men who had fought under Heemskerk leads
one to suspect that probably the breach was not of great size, and the
more so as the garrison was able to repair it during the following
night. It is not mentioned in the Dutch account, in which the bravery of
their opponents is fully recognised.
On the 4th of August Verhoeff sent a trumpeter with a letter demanding
the surrender of the fortress. D’Ataide would not even write a reply.
He said that as he had compelled Van Caerden to abandon the siege he
hoped to be able to do the same with his present opponent. The captain
of the bastion São Gabriel, however, wrote that the castle had been
confided by the king to the commandant, who was not the kind of cat to
be taken without gloves. Verhoeff believed that the garrison was ill
supplied with food, so his trumpeter was well entertained, and on
several occasions goats and pigs were driven out of the gateway in a
spirit of bravado.
[Sidenote: _Historical Sketches._]
Sorties were frequently made by the besieged, who had the advantage of
being able to observe from the ramparts the movements of the Dutch. In
one of these a soldier named Moraria distinguished himself by attacking
singly with his lance three pikemen in armour at a distance from their
batteries, killing two of them and wounding the other.
D’Ataide was made acquainted with his enemy’s plans by a French
deserter, who claimed his protection on the ground of being of the same
religion. Four others subsequently deserted from the Dutch camp, and
were received in the fortress on the same plea. Verhoeff demanded that
they should be surrendered to him, and threatened that if they were not
given up he would put to death the thirty-four prisoners he had taken in
the carrack. D’Ataide replied that if the prisoners were thirty-four
thousand he would not betray men who were catholics and who had claimed
his protection, but if the Portuguese captives were murdered their blood
would certainly be avenged. Verhoeff relates in his journal that the
whole of the prisoners were then brought out in sight of the garrison
and shot, regarding the act in the spirit of the time as rather
creditable than otherwise; but the version of the Portuguese historian
may be correct, in which it is stated that six men with their hands
bound were shot in sight of their countrymen, and that the others,
though threatened, were spared. Until the 18th of August the siege was
continued. Twelve hundred and fifty cannon balls had been fired against
the fortress, without effect as far as its reduction was concerned.
Thirty of Verhoeff’s men had been killed and eighty were wounded. He
therefore abandoned the effort, and embarked his force, after destroying
what remained of the town.
[Sidenote: Third Siege of Mozambique.]
On the 21st a great galleon approached the island so close that the
ships in the harbour could be counted from her deck, but put about the
moment the Dutch flag was distinguished. Verhoeff sent the ships
_Arend_, _Griffioen_, and _Valk_ in pursuit, and she was soon overtaken.
According to the Dutch account she made hardly any resistance, but in a
letter to the king from her captain, Francisco de Sodre Pereira, which
is still preserved, he claims to have made a gallant stand for the
honour of his flag. The galleon was poorly armed, but he says that he
fought till his ammunition was all expended, and even then would not
consent to surrender, though the ship was so riddled with cannon balls
that she was in danger of going down. He preferred, he said to those
around him, to sink with his colours flying. The purser, however,
lowered the ensign without orders, and a moment afterwards the Dutch,
who had closed in, took possession. The prize proved to be the _Bom
Jesus_, from Lisbon, which had got separated from a fleet on the way to
Goa, under command of the newly appointed viceroy, the count De Feira.
She had a crew of one hundred and eighty men. The officers were detained
as prisoners, the others were put ashore on the island Saint George with
provisions sufficient to last them two days.
On the 23rd of August the fleet sailed from Mozambique for India. There
can be little question that this defeat of the Dutch was more
advantageous to them than victory would have been, for if their design
had succeeded a very heavy tax upon their resources and their energy
would have been entailed thereafter. After this siege Fort São
Sebastião was provided with a garrison of one hundred and fifty men, and
some small armed vessels were kept on the coast to endeavour to prevent
the Dutch from communicating with the inhabitants or obtaining
provisions and water, but their ships kept the Portuguese stations in
constant alarm.
[Sidenote: Historical Sketches.]
On his arrival in India Verhoeff entered into a treaty of alliance with
the ruler of Calicut against the Portuguese, in which he secured
commercial privileges. In May 1609 he and twenty-nine of his principal
officers, when holding a conference with some Bandanese, were murdered
on the island of Neira, and all the Dutch at Lonthor shared the same
fate. This led immediately to the conquest of Neira, and the erection of
the strong fort Nassau in a commanding position on the island. On the
10th of August 1609 a treaty of peace was concluded with the Bandanese
government, in which the sovereignty of Neira was ceded to the Dutch,
and a monopoly of the spice trade in all the islands dependent on Banda
was secured. In June 1609 a treaty was concluded with the ruler of
Ternate, by which that island and all its dependencies came under the
protection of the Dutch, and a monopoly of the spice trade was secured.
In September 1609 a factory was established at Firato in Japan, where
the Dutch obtained from the emperor liberty to trade. On the 25th of
November 1609 the Portuguese fort on Batjan, one of the Molucca islands,
was taken, and became thereafter Fort Barneveld.
V.
THE TRUCE WITH SPAIN AND ENGLISH RIVALRY.
[Sidenote: Conquest and Trade in the East.]
By this time the Dutch had factories or trading stations at Masulipatam,
Pulikat, and two smaller places on the eastern coast of Hindostan, they
had liberty to trade at Calicut, they had entered into a new treaty with
the maharaja of Kandy in Ceylon, they had factories at Bantam and Grésik
in Java, and in November 1610 they entered into a treaty with the ruler
of Jakatra in the same island, in which they secured the site of the
future city of Batavia, they held the protectorate of Ternate, although
the Portuguese still had a fort there, Neira was theirs with a monopoly
of the spice trade of all the Banda islands, Batjan was theirs also, as
was Amboina, they had factories at Patani on the eastern coast of the
Malay peninsula, established in 1604, and at Johor at its southern
extremity, also at Achin in Sumatra, at Landok in Borneo, on the island
of Celebes, and in the empire of Japan. The foundation of the vast realm
which they subsequently acquired in the eastern seas was thus
established on the ruins of the gigantic dominions of Portugal, though
much fighting was still to be done before it should be fully built up.
A great defect appeared to be the want of some local authority to
control the conquests and supervise the trade. To meet this want the
assembly of seventeen resolved to establish a strong government in the
East, though the seat of authority was not fixed upon. On the 21st of
November 1609 Pieter Both was appointed first governor-general of
Netherlands India, and councillors, consisting of the principal
officials, were named to assist him. He left Texel on the 30th of
January 1610 with a fleet of eight ships. In a great storm off the Cape
his ship got separated from the others, so he put into Table Bay to
repair some damages to the mainmast and to refresh his men. In July 1610
Captain Nicholas Downton called at the same port in an English vessel,
and found Governor-General Both’s ship lying at anchor and also two
homeward bound Dutch ships taking in train oil that had been collected
at Robben Island. The governor-general arrived at Bantam on the 19th of
December 1610, and in the factory at that place, in a town belonging to
an independent though friendly sovereign, an authority, soon to eclipse
that of any Indian prince, was first established.
[Sidenote: Historical Sketches.]
The great successes of the Dutch in the eastern seas caused the
Spaniards to desire peace, and they were prepared to acknowledge the
independence of the United Provinces if two conditions only could be
obtained: the right of Roman Catholics to worship in public and the
prohibition of the Indian trade. The archduke Albert made the first
advance by sending two secret agents to the Hague at the close of 1606.
The Dutch people were divided in opinion: one party, under the
leadership of the prominent statesman Johan van Olden-Barneveld,
favoured peace on reasonable terms, the other, under Maurits of Nassau,
desired to continue the war until Spain should be thoroughly humiliated.
The peace party was in the majority, and as the other European
governments were urgent that hostilities should be brought to an end, in
April 1607 an armistice was agreed to for eight months from the 4th of
May, in order that negotiations might be entered into.
Just at this time an event occurred which greatly promoted the desire of
the Spaniards for peace. A fleet of twenty-six small ships of war and
four tenders, under Admiral Jacob van Heemskerk, had recently been sent
by the states-general to cruise in the Atlantic. Heemskerk came to learn
that a Spanish war fleet of ten great galleons and eleven smaller
vessels, under command of Don Juan Alvarez d’Avila, was lying at anchor
in Gibraltar Bay under the guns of the fortress. Notwithstanding the
tremendous disparity of force, he determined to attack the enemy, and on
the 25th of April 1607 he stood into the bay and boldly grappled with
the monster galleons. It was like a fight between giants and pygmies,
but so daring were the Dutch sailors that every galleon was destroyed.
Before nightfall nothing of the Spanish fleet but burning fragments
could be seen floating in the bay or stranded on the shore. It was one
of the most brilliant naval victories ever recorded, and it was won
against such odds that it seemed to be due to God alone. Heemskerk fell
in the battle, killed by a cannon ball, leaving a deathless name of
glory behind him. The Spanish admiral also was killed in the engagement.
Unfortunately the victory was tarnished by a ferocious massacre of all
the Spaniards that could be laid hold of, for which barbarous act Pieter
Willemszoon Verhoeff, captain of the admiral’s ship, was chiefly
responsible.
[Sidenote: Conclusion of a Long Truce.]
The Dutch now rejected the two Spanish conditions with disdain, and had
it not been for the intervention of the agents of other governments, the
negotiations would have been broken off. As it was, they were continued,
but such difficulties were experienced in coming to terms that it was
necessary to prolong the armistice from time to time, and it was not
until the 9th of April 1609 that matters were finally arranged and a
treaty was signed at Antwerp. Even then it was not a final peace that
was concluded, but only a truce for twelve years, during which time each
party was to retain whatever territory it possessed on that day, and
could carry on commerce freely with the other.
The republic of the United Netherlands thereafter consisted of the
provinces of Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Friesland, Groningen, Overyssel
with Drenthe except the town of Oldenzaal, which was held by the
archduke, and about three quarters of ancient Gelderland, which retained
that name. In this, however, the town of Groenlo or Grol was held by the
archduke. South of the Schelde the republic was in possession of Sluis
and Axel, with the forts along the river in Flanders, which with
Flushing gave it control of the navigation of the stream and enabled it
to stifle Antwerp. South of the Maas it possessed in Brabant all the
territory belonging to the marquisate of Bergen op Zoom, the barony of
Breda, and the land of Grave with Kuik. This territory in Flanders and
Brabant was governed directly by the states-general, being of course
detached from the provinces to which it properly belonged. The seven
provinces were in one sense seven sovereign states, as they voted
separately in the states-general, and no one of them was bound by any
act to which it did not individually consent. It was the weakest form of
a federal government, being rather a loose alliance than a firm union.
That was its great defect, which, however, was not remedied until nearly
two centuries more had passed away.
[Sidenote: Historical Sketches.]
The provinces that remained under the government of Albert and Isabella
covered much more ground than the present kingdom of Belgium.[36] France
always coveted them, and never lost an opportunity to gnaw portions of
them away. By the treaty of the Pyrenees on the 7th of November 1659
Louis XIV obtained a strip of territory containing Thionville, Montmedi,
Damvilliers, Ivoix, and Marville. By the treaty of Aix la Chapelle on
the 2nd of May 1668 he obtained Lille, Douai, Courtrai, and Charleroi.
On the 17th of March 1677 Valenciennes was taken by the French, and on
the 5th of April 1677 Cambrai fell into their hands. By the treaty of
Nymegen on the 17th of September 1678 France was recognised as the owner
of a slice of Belgian territory containing these cities, and by the
treaty of Ratisbon on the 15th of August 1684 she acquired part of
Luxemburg.
[Sidenote: Partition of Belgian Territory.]
Thus before the close of the seventeenth century Belgium had lost to
France two entire provinces--Artois and Lille with Douai and
Orchies--and part of Flanders containing Dunkirk, Gravelines, and
Menior, part of Hainaut, containing Valenciennes, Bavay, Maubeuge,
Conde, Marienbourg, and Philippeville, part of Namur containing
Charlemont, part of Luxemburg containing Thionville and Montmedi, and
the city and bishopric of Cambrai, which then ranked as a duchy. The
present boundary between France and Belgium was not fixed until 1814.