Dryden and Holland

[p. 135]

Appendix II
Some notes on Amboyna.

1. Those who are interested in the play will find copious and on the whole reliable notes in Summers' edition of Dryden's plays¹. Dryden could not have wished a more sympathetic editor than this ‘eremitical and rigid old Victorian’², whose views correspond with those of the Tories in the seventeenth century. Yet his labours are sometimes entirely overlooked.

In the Review of English Studies VIII (New Series) 1957, where the forthcoming edition of The Works of John Dryden under the supervision of Professor Swedenberg is enthusiastically announced, the reviewer³ says: ‘The Scott-Saintsbury edition is difficult to buy. Only a few of the plays are accessible in any form whatever’. Not a word about Summers' edition of 1932. It is true that his work met with criticism; when he gives expression to his rough and ready high-Tory views, he becomes at times exasperating. Many of his comments will not pass unchallenged, such as, ‘with an intruder (William III) in power any illegality was possible’; ‘the so-called reformed religion in Holland was wide enough to include almost any fanaticism and eccentricity’; ‘it is true that if one scratches a Whig one finds an atheist’ etc. etc. But we may nevertheless be grateful for the enormous amount of work that has been done in collecting notes for the plays. One or two errors in about 20 pages of annotation on Amboyna should not pass uncorrected, while other comment is added on passages in the play that warrant further treatment.

On page 346 of his edition Summers says: ‘Dryden in the main has scarcely departed from history’. It all depends on what is understood by ‘in the main’ and ‘scarcely’. Act II, III, and IV are merely fictitious; acts I and V contain much that is not in accordance with the historical facts; for instance, nothing is known about van Speult's son, Ysabinda, or a woman who was tortured. In the fifth act no Englishman confesses in spite of hideous torments; in reality they all ‘confessed’, Beamont even twice. Dryden deviated considerably from historical truth, partly

1 Dryden. The Dramatic Works III.

2 As Summers calls himself in his edition of Shadwell's Works.

3 James Kinsley.

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because his material was insufficient to make good drama, but even more so because of his desire to rouse popular feeling against Holland.

Summers seems convinced that the Low Countries were flooded with abusive pictures and medals directed against King Charles. ‘They were the veriest factory of lampoon’ (p. 562). There was, however, but one medal struck that could be called abusive. Pictures deriding Charles II are also rare before the third Anglo-Dutch war (Romein de Hooghe's art flourished most in and after 1672). The affair of the abusive pictures and medals was much exaggerated to form another justification for war (see also note 4).

On page 562 Summers quotes Sanderson's Compleat History: ‘the Governour of Amboyna, leaving his Command, was forced by fowl weather upon our Coast, his Ships seized on, and his person brought to give an accompt heroef before our Admiralty...’. But Sanderson was misinformed. After his governorship van Speult never returned to Europe. He went from Batavia on an expedition to the Red Sea and died at Moncha¹.

Summers defines fiscal as ‘a magistrate whose duty it was to take cognizance of offences against the revenue’. But Dutch ‘fiskaal’ had the wider meaning of Public Prosecutor².

2. The Epistle Dedicatory, p. 348³. Injurious to his Propriety. Propriety = property.

3. The Epistle Dedicatory, p. 349. Principles, which are asserted with so generous and so unconstrain'd a Tryal = Principles which were maintained in such a noble and voluntary test.

4. Prologue, p. 351.

‘Their Pictures and Inscriptions well we know;
We may be bold one Medal sure to show’.

Dryden seems to have studied Dutch emblems with some relish. A graphic description is to be found in his postscript of the History of the League 1684, when he wanted to illustrate his conviction that Calvinists and Jesuits held the same tenets as regards the right of the people to depose a ‘heretical’ King,

1 inter alia Cal. of S.P. Col. 1625-29, p. 690.

2 Woordenboek der Nederlandsche Taal: fiskaal = rechterlijk ambtenaar die voor de belangen van den souverein of van de schatkist optreedt; ambtenaar van het openbaar ministerie.

3 The pages throughout refer to Summers' edition.

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‘And if, after so many advices to a painter, I might advise a Dutch maker of emblems, he should draw a Presbyterian in arms on one side, a Jesuit on the other, and a crowned head betwixt them; for it is perfectly a battle-royal. Each of them is endeavouring the destruction of his adversary; but the monarch is sure to get blows on both sides’.

In 1672 King Charles saw a reason for war in these pictures and medals. He could bear the Dutch insolence no longer, ‘....n'y ayant presque point de ville dans toute l'étendue de leur Jurisdiction, qui ne soit remplie de Peintures offençantes, de Medailles, ou de Monumens faux, dont il y a même, qui ont été mis au jour ou exposés publiquement en montre par ordre de l'Etat’. (Declaration of war).

Judging from what is extant in the Dutch museums of prints and numismatic collections, this accusation seems rather exaggerated. One or two engravings and only one medal in the period between 1667 and 1672 may be called abusive. One of the prints¹ was also known in England; Henry Stubbe reproduced it in his pamphlet, A further justification of the war against Holland². It contains conventional allegorical figures, a virgin (Holland) trampling down another woman (England) adorned with peacock-feathers and resting her head on a globe. In front of her a Dutch sailor is cutting off the tails of English dogs. In the left hand top corner a farmer is killing a snake (Charles II) which had been warming itself in front of his fire. Another print³ that may have roused indignation in England is the Sinnebeelt op d'Engelse Brandt-stichters 1666 (Emblem of the English Incendiaries). Charles II, sitting on his throne, rewards sailors who had burnt the Dutch merchant-men in the Vlie, but at the same time the miserable victims of the Great Fire of London come to implore his help. Charles's crown slants on his head. In a rhymed explanation the attention of Parliament is drawn to the King's unsteady position:

‘Ja siet gy niet alreets gy Heeren met u allen,
Hoe dat van Karels hooft de Kroon begint te vallen’.

The King's features, however, are regular and not unpleasant. The

1 Rijksprentenkabinet no. 2303.

2 Knuttel no. 10017 a.

3 Rijksprentenkabinet no. 2244. Sinnebeelt op d'Engelse Brandt-stichters.

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time had not yet come that caricature began to tamper with the features of its victim¹.

At the command of the States General a medal² was struck in remembrance of the peace of Breda (1667). The obverse shows a virgin (Holland) trampling down Discord (a witch-like figure with features that may or may not resemble Charles II). In the back-ground we see the burning of English ships at Chatham and the motto: Procul hinc mala bestia regnis. The Master of the Mint in England showed the medal to the King, because ill-disposed people applied ‘mala bestia’ to Charles himself. The Dutch government requested Sir William Temple, the English ambassador at The Hague, to convince the King that mala bestia referred to ‘war, envy and discord’³. At the same time they ordered the seal-engraver, Christoffel Adolphi, to break the dies, awarding him one thousand ducatons as a compensation for his loss.

The indignation in England about pictures and medals was politically engineered; of course the Dutch tried to prove that the affair had been inflated out of all proportion. The Dutch writer of a surreptitious pamphlet, called England's Appeal⁴, said that the English had not been able to procure any defamatory pictures. It is true that one medal was struck, but the dies were broken and what is more, all impartial people that had seen it, could not find anything in it that was insulting to His Majesty. This pamphlet was a serious attempt to influence members of Parliament in favour of Holland, and the author would not have written it, if the contrary could easily have been proved, since this would obviously have defeated his own object. Dryden seems to have had such Dutch denial in mind when he wrote his prologue. He, at least, could show an abusive medal - his picture of the Dutch cruelties in Amboyna.

5. Act I, p. 356. ‘Did he (Towerson) not leave a mistress in these Parts?’ Towerson's real love-story is rather different from Dryden's narrative. From scattered items in the State Papers may be inferred that his feelings towards his ‘mistress’ had a solid material basis in the shape of ‘great diamonds’. She was an Indian lady, the widow of one captain

1 C. Veth, Geschiedenis van de Nederlandsche Caricatuur, Leiden 1921.

2 G. van Loon, Beschrijving der Nederlandsche Historiepenningen, 's-Gravenhage 1726, vol. II, p. 555.

3 Resolutiën der Staten van Holland, 18 May 1669.

4 Knuttel no. 10912. The writer was probably Du Moulin, secretary of William of Orange.

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‘Hawkins, and said to be very rich. Her wealth even roused the greed of Towerson's employers in London. In the court-minutes of 1614 we read: “Mrs. Hawkins has one diamond of 2000 1b. and a smaller one worth 4000 1b, beside other precious stones. The governor charges all present to keep these things secret”’¹. Towerson married the rich widow² and began to travel through India ‘with a large retinue, a trumpet and more show than the lord ambassador’³. The latter was sorry ‘for him and his little vanity’. Towerson discovered to his chagrin that his wife's friends and relations were poor and he was soon ‘weary of his new kindred’. He left for England, his wife and his mother-in-law staying at Agra, evidently not in the best of circumstances, for they had to borrow money ‘until his return’. But he never saw them again; his company sent him to Amboyna, where he met with his death.

6. Act I, p. 359. ‘we must use your Head in a certain Business’. Towerson's head was put on a stake, where it remained for a long time. This caused much indignation and protest⁴

7. Act II, p. 360.

Ysabinda: You do belie him basely.

Harman: As much as I do you, in saying you are fair...

It would seem that Harman means: I do not belie you if I say that you are fair; neither do I belie Towerson in saying that he is false; it is the truth.

8. Act II, p. 365. ‘No transitory sum’. Transitory = trifling, of little moment.

9. Act II, p. 369. Beamont: ‘...you made bold with the first of the Divine Attributes; and call'd your selves the High and Mighty: though, let me tell you, that, besides the Blasphemy, the Title is ridiculous;’ Beamont's pious words were irrelevant. ‘Hoogmogend’ (title of the members of the States General) is not an attribute reserved for God. The epithet was often ridiculed. In The Wild Gallant (1663) Bibber confesses: ‘I was drunk with Ale, great Hogen Mogen bloody Ale’. In The Assignation (1673) Laura says: ‘I have found thee out for a high and mighty fool’ (act III, scene 1). In 1674 appeared an anonymous

1 Cal. of S.P. Col. 1513-1616, pp. 277, 278.

2 Cal. of S.P. Col. 1617-1622, pp. 86, 120, 140, 334 etc.

3 Cf. Amboyna, act II, p. 369. ‘...for our Merchants live like Noblemen...’.

4 Cal. of S.P. Col. 1625-1629, p. 155.

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satire on the Dutch, an imitation of Hudibras, under the title of Hoganmoganides, ‘an account of the birth, parentage and education of Hogan, the lubberly representative of their High Mightinesses¹’. For Dryden's bitter mockery in The State of Innocence see p. 73.

10. Act II, p. 369. ‘....for our Merchants live like Noblemen: your Gentlemen, if you have any, live like Boors’. An ever recurrent description of English and Dutch merchants. Sprat wrote in his History of the Royal Society: ‘The Merchants of England live honourably in foreign Parts, those of Holland meanly, minding their Gain alone: ours converse freely, and learn from all; having in their Behaviour very much of the Gentility of the Families, from which so many of them are descended. The others when they are abroad, show that they are only a Race of plain Citizens...’. But he added: ‘This I have spoken not to lessen the Reputation of that industrious People...’².

11. Act II, p. 370. Beamont: ‘...I prophesie...that some generous Monarch...will re-assume the Fishery of our Seas’. Of course ‘some generous Monarch’ stands for Charles II. Indeed, measures were taken in his reign to promote British fishery. Immediately after the Restoration the House of Commons passed the Bill for Encouragement of the Fishery Trade of this Nation. But this bill did not reach the House of Lords, because Parliament was prorogued. Later on great privileges were promised to those who would apply themselves to fishing³. But the generous Monarch did not succeed in driving the Dutch fishermen from the British coasts, except, of course, in war-time, when the Dutch government did not allow the fishing busses to sail out. Again and again the Dutch Republic managed to maintain the right of free fishing so clearly expressed in the Magnus Intercursus, the treaty of 1496 between the English King and Philip, Duke of Burgundy, which allowed fishermen of both parties the right of fishing ‘absque aliquo Impedimento, Licentia, seu Salvo Conductu’.

It was James I who tried to encroach upon the rights of Dutch fishermen in 1609, when his Proclamation touching Fishing was published⁴. He ordered that ‘no Person... be permitted to fish upon our Coasts and

1 Cf. also N.E.D. sub Hogen Mogen.

2 p. 88.

3 Cal. of S.P. Dom. 1661-62, pp. 8, 69.

4 A. Beaujon, The History of Dutch Sea Fisheries, London 1884, p. 168.

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Seas of Great Britain...until they have orderly demanded and obtain'd Licences from us’. His proclamation appeared two months after Grotius' Mare Liberum, which was originally written to prove that the Portuguese had no exclusive rights in the Indian Ocean. But the book was also applicable to the situation in the Narrow Seas, which were claimed by the English King as his own dominion¹. The term ‘Narrow Seas’ was originally confined to the Channel, but in the seventeenth century English statesmen began to extend the meaning to the sea between England and the Netherlands². With this interpretation the prospect for the Dutch herring fishery was gloomy indeed. Yet King James did not press his alleged claims; the question remained unsettled and the Dutch fished practically unmolested, till, in 1635, John Selden's Mare Clausum seu Dominium Maris appeared. Soon after the publication Charles I repeated his father's attempt to make the Dutch fishermen pay taxes. Again the Netherlands managed to evade a settlement of the question, till the events in England broke the King's power to assert himself abroad. There was a last endeavour to impose the so-called rights of the English King in 1664. War was imminent and England proffered passports to Dutch fishermen against payment of safeguard-money. But the Dutch government strictly prohibited the acceptance of such licences, because it made their fishermen indirectly tributary to the King of England. Thus they maintained their right of free fishing against the English pretence of the ‘mare clausum’. Nevertheless the hey-day of the Dutch herring fishery was past when naval warfare against England began. Long periods of inactivity caused by wars, loss of ships, and failure to maintain the high quality of salted herring in spite of the strict regulations, led to a rapid decline of the trade.

12. Act III, p. 372. Beamont: ‘...'t was certainly an Enemy, who came to take your sleeping life; but thus to leave unfinish'd the designe, proclaims the act, No Dutchman’. Summers gives the reading of the oldest editions. The Scott-Saintsbury edition has: no Dutchman's, which certainly makes more sense.

13. Act III, p. 377. ‘...our Countrymen...were dispossest, and naked sent away from that rich Island (Lantore) and from Poleroon’.

1 Dryden refers to the alleged English superiority in the Narrow Seas in act III, p. 378: ‘(I) told him he should dearly answer it, if e're I met him in the Narrow Seas’.

2 G. Edmundson, Anglo-Dutch Rivalry, Oxford 1911, p. 161.

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In the beginning of the seventeenth century there was an English factory in Puluroon, one of the Banda islands. When the Dutch began to extend their authority in the Moluccas, the English East-India Company sent one of their best servants, Nathaniel Courthope, to defend the island to the utmost of his power, if the Hollanders should ‘offer violence’. Almost unsupported by his company, he held out till 1620, when, trying to procure stores for his fort, he was killed at sea. Soon afterwards the Dutch took Lantar (Dryden: Lantore), seized the English company's goods, and landed on Puluroon. By virtue of a treaty in 1623 the island had to be ceded to the English East-India Company, but nothing happened till 1654, when the unhappy issue of the first Anglo-Dutch war compelled the States General to order the Dutch company to give up the island. But the English did not avail themselves of the opportunity. Two directors of the English company had been bribed for an annuity of £ 1000 to prevent the occupation¹. After the Restoration and the death of those corruptible gentlemen the English company again claimed the island. The Dutch demanded a formal authorisation from King Charles II that his subjects were entitled to occupy the island by virtue of the treaty of 1654. Of course nothing was easier than to obtain an authorisation, but the King positively declined to recognise a treaty made by Cromwell. So the Dutch refused to give up Puluroon; Charles had recognised Cromwell's Navigation Acts; he should have recognised Cromwell's treaty of 1654 as well. This was not merely petty bickering. The treaty of 1654 had settled the so-called ‘pretentions’ of the English company; if Charles did not recognise the treaty, the older claims could be resurrected again. At last, after long negotiations, the States General gave in and ordered the Dutch East-India Company to accept Charles's authorisation without any allusion to the treaty of Westminster. Before long, English representatives appeared before the authorities in Batavia to claim possession of Puluroon. To prove the legality of their demands, they produced a document. But the Dutch council, seeing that the paper was ‘begrimed, soiled and rather mutilated’², doubted if it was the King's authorisation. They would not begin to speak about a cession before the English representatives had sworn solemn oaths. Pending the

1 N. Japikse, De Verwikkelingen tusschen de Republiek en Engeland van 1660-1665, Leiden 1900, p. 87.

2 ibidem, p. 370: ‘bemorst, bemeuselt ende toegesteldt’.

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negotiations the second Anglo-Dutch war broke out. At the peace of Breda Puluroon remained Dutch; together with Surinam if was thought an adequate compensation for the loss of the New Netherlands.

14. Act IV, p. 383. Yough Fro = Dutch, juffrouw. The other Dutch words used in the play are skellum (p. 354), stert and start (p. 354 and p. 405), romer (p. 360), Min Heer (p. 363), Swager (p. 366) and Hans in Kelder (the unborn babe, p. 383). As Dryden had some knowledge of German¹, it is not impossible that he could also understand - or thought he could understand - the Dutch language. At any rate he makes bold to judge Dutch poetry. It had less of music in it than ordinary speech of the Italians. Dutch poets were insipid and dull. But the words mentioned above were evidently common knowledge in England in the seventeenth century, and they cannot be used as proof that Dryden knew Dutch.

15. Act V, p. 403. Towerson: ‘...give to my brave Employers of the East-India Company the last Remembrance of my faithful Service’. Towerson's relations with his employers were not so ideal as Dryden would have us believe. He was in the habit of doing a little business on the side, even pretending that he had the Company's licence for private trade². This roused the envy of his fellow-merchants, who complained to the company at home. It did not come to a definite breach between Towerson and his employers, but there were frequent frictions.

16. Act V, p. 404. Perez: ‘But I am guilty of a greater Crime; For, being married in another Country, the Governors perswasions...made me leave the first...’. There is a reference to Perez's wife in an authentic copy of the Acts of the Processe³. ‘...the wife of Augustine Peres which hath beene a slave of the honourable Dutch East-India Company, who was given to the said Augustine in hope of his good carriage for the present, shee shall returne to her ancient Maisters of the said Compagnie, untill such time that shee shall be otherwise disposed of by the Governour’.

17. Act V, p. 405. ‘There's ne'er a Nostradamus of 'em all shall fright us from our Gain’. Though Dryden was a dabbler in astrology

1 Cf. F. Harder, Eine Deutsche Anregung zu Dryden's ‘Alexander's Feast’, Englische Studien 1926, p. 177.

2 Cal. of S.P. Col. 1617-1622, pp. 86, 117, 120, 296.

3 Knuttel no. 3552.

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till the end of his life, he did not seem to take the famous Michel de Nostredame seriously, which is clear from his reference in The Hind and the Panther, part III, lines 519-522,

‘Each Nostradamus can foretell with ease:
Not naming persons, and confounding times,
One casual truth supports a thousand lying rimes’.

If Dryden speaks humorously of the French astrologer, many took him seriously in those ‘prophesying times’. In the same year as Amboyna, there appeared ‘Predictions tirées des Centuries de Nostradamus’, written by Le Chevalier de Jant and dedicated to Louis XIV. De Jant took seven stanzas from Nostredame which seemed to point to Holland's downfall, and explained that Louis was destined to fulfil the prophecy. As there is no indication that Dryden knew the booklet, we might ignore it, if it did not throw light on the affair of the abusive medals. De Jant quotes the inscriptions of two specimens¹ as the ‘ridicule trophée de leur vanité’. One, showing the sea, bears the proud inscription: ‘Sic fines nostros, leges tutamur et undas’, and the other: ‘...Vindicata Marium Libertate...Stabilita Orbis Europaei Quiete, hoc Senatus Foederati Belgii cudi fecit’. De Jant indicated that these were one of the reasons for the English King's war against Holland. They were not insulting to Charles personally; it was the jubilation of the Dutch at their victory that excited his anger.

1 G. van Loon, Beschrijving der Nederlandsche Historiepenningen, 's-Gravenhage 1726, II, p. 555 and III, p. 24.