A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 9 | Page 4

Robert Kerr
their perpetual contract; but, for the more readily obtaining some
loading, I agreed to pay them sixty dollars. This increase of price made
the natives very desirous of furnishing me, so that I certainly had
procured a full lading in a month, had not the Dutch overawed the
natives, imprisoning them, and threatening to put them to death,
keeping strict guard on all the coasts. Most of these islands produce
abundance of cloves; and those that are inhabited of any note, yield the
following quantities, one year with another. Ternate 1000 bahars,
Machian 1090, Tidore 900, Bachian 300, Moteer 600, Mean 50, Batta
China 35; in all 3975 bahars, or 2,633,437 1/2 English pounds, being
1175 tons, twelve _cwts._ three _qrs._ and nine and a half _libs._
Every third year is far more fruitful than the two former, and is
therefore termed the great monsoon.
It is lamentable to see the destruction which has been brought upon
these islands by civil wars, which, as I learnt while there, began and
continued in the following manner: At the discovery of these islands by
the Portuguese, they found fierce war subsisting between the kings of
Ternate and Tidore, to which two all the other islands were either
subjected, or were confederated, with one or other of them. The
Portuguese, the better to establish themselves, took no part with either,
but politically kept friends with both, and fortified themselves in the
two principal islands of Ternate and Tidore, engrossing the whole trade
of cloves into their own hands. In this way they domineered till the year
1605, when the Dutch dispossessed them by force, and took possession
for themselves. Yet so weakly did they provide for defending the
acquisition, that the Spaniards drove them out next year from both
islands, by a force sent from the Philippine islands, took the king of
Ternate prisoner, and sent him to the Philippines, and kept both Ternate
and Tidore for some time in their hands. Since then the Dutch have
recovered some footing in these, islands, and, at the time of my being
there, were in possession of the following forts.
On the island of Ternate they have a fort named: Malayou, having three
bulwarks or bastions, Tolouco having two bastions and a round tower,
and Tacome with four bastions. On Tidore they have a fort called
Marieka, with four bastions. On Machian, Tufasoa, the chief town of
the island, having four large bastions with sixteen pieces of cannon,
and inhabited by about 1000 natives: At Nofakia, another town on that

island, they have two forts or redoubts, and a third on the top of a high
hill with five or six guns, which commands the road on the other side.
Likewise at Tabalola, another town in Machian, they have two forts
with eight cannons, this place being very strongly situated by nature.
The natives of all these places are under their command. Those of
Nofakia are not esteemed good soldiers, and are said always to side
with the strongest; but those of Tabalola, who formerly resided at
Cayoa, are accounted the best soldiers in the Moluccas, being deadly
enemies to the Portuguese and Spaniards, and as weary now of the
Dutch dominion. In these fortified stations in Machian, when I was
there, the Dutch had 120 European soldiers; of whom eighty were at
Tafasoa, thirty at Nofakia, and ten at Tabalola. The isle of Machian is
the richest in cloves of all the Molucca islands; and, according to report,
yields 1800 bahars in the great monsoon. The Dutch have one large fort
in the island of Bachian, and four redoubts in the isle of Moteer. The
civil wars have so wasted the population of these islands, that vast
quantities of cloves perish yearly for want of hands to gather them;
neither is there any likelihood of peace till one party or the other be
utterly extirpated.
Leaving them to their wars, I now return to our traffic, and shall shew
how we traded with the natives, which was mostly by exchanging or
bartering the cotton cloths of Cambaya and Coromandel for cloves. The
sorts in request and the prices we obtained being as follows:
Candakeens of Baroach six cattees of cloves; candakeens of Papang,
which are flat, three cattees; Selas, or small bastas, seven and eight
cattees; Patta chere Malayo sixteen cattees; five cassas twelve cattees;
coarse of that kind eight cattees; red Batellias, or Tancoulas, forty-four
and forty-eight cattees; Sarassas chere Malayo forty-eight and fifty
cattees; Sarampouri thirty cattees; _Chelles, Tapsiels_, and Matafons,
twenty and twenty-four cattees; white Cassas, or Tancoulos, forty and
forty-four cattees; the finest Donjerijus twelve, and coarser eight and
ten cattees; Pouti Castella ten cattees; the finest Ballachios thirty
cattees; Pata chere Malayo of two fathoms eight and ten cattees; great
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