The Works of John Dryden

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5 (of 18) by John Dryden
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Title: The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18)
Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love
Author: John Dryden
Editor: Walter Scott (1771-1832)
Release Date: July 5, 2005 [EBook #16208]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
0. START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WORKS
OF JOHN DRYDEN ***
Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Fred Robinson and the Online

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.
THE
WORKS
OF
JOHN DRYDEN,
NOW FIRST COLLECTED
IN EIGHTEEN VOLUMES.

ILLUSTRATED
WITH NOTES,
HISTORICAL, CRITICAL, AND EXPLANATORY,
AND
A LIFE OF THE AUTHOR,
BY
WALTER SCOTT, ESQ.
VOL. V.
LONDON:
PRINTED FOR WILLIAM MILLER, ALBEMARLE STREET,
BY JAMES BALLANTYNE AND CO. EDINBURGH.
1808.

CONTENTS
OF
VOLUME FIFTH.
Amboyna; or the Cruelties of the Dutch to the English Merchants, a
Tragedy
Epistle Dedicatory to Lord Clifford of Chudleigh
The State of Innocence, and Fall of Man, an Opera
Epistle Dedicatory to her Royal Highness the Duchess Preface.--The

Author's Apology for Heroic Poetry, and Poetic Licence
Aureng-Zebe, a Tragedy
Epistle Dedicatory to the Earl of Mulgrave
All for Love, or the World Well Lost, a Tragedy
Epistle Dedicatory to the Earl of Danby
Preface

AMBOYNA:
OR, THE
CRUELTIES OF THE DUTCH
TO THE
ENGLISH MERCHANTS.
A
TRAGEDY.
--_Manet altâ mente repostum._
AMBOYNA.
The tragedy of Amboyna, as it was justly termed by the English of the
seventeenth century, was of itself too dreadful to be heightened by the
mimic horrors of the stage. The reader may be reminded, that by three
several treaties in the years 1613, 1615, and 1619, it was agreed betwixt
England and Holland, that the English should enjoy one-third of the
trade of the spice islands. For this purpose, factories were established
on behalf of the English East India Company at the Molucca Islands, at
Banda, and at Amboyna. At the latter island the Dutch had a castle,
with a garrison, both of Europeans and natives. It has been always

remarked, that the Dutchman, in his eastern settlements, loses the
mercantile probity of his European character, while he retains its
cold-blooded phlegm and avaricious selfishness. Of this the Amboyna
government gave a notable proof. About the 11th of Feb. 1622, old stile,
under pretence of a plot laid between the English of the factory and
some Japanese soldiers to seize the castle, the former were arrested by
the Dutch, and subjected to the most horrible tortures, to extort
confession of their pretended guilt. Upon some they poured water into a
cloth previously secured round their necks and shoulders, until
suffocation ensued; others were tortured with lighted matches, and
torches applied to the most tender and sensible parts of the body. But I
will not pollute my page with this monstrous and disgusting detail.
Upon confessions, inconsistent with each other, with common sense
and ordinary probability, extorted also by torments of the mind or body,
or both, Captain Gabriel Towerson, and nine other English merchants
of consideration, were executed; and, to add insult to atrocity, the
bloody cloth, on which Towerson kneeled at his death, was put down to
the account of the English Company. The reader may find the whole
history in the second volume of Purchas's "Pilgrim." The news of this
horrible massacre reached King James, while he was negociating with
the Dutch concerning the assistance which they then implored against
the Spaniards; and the affairs of his son-in-law, the Elector Palatine,
appeared to render an union with Holland so peremptorily necessary,
that the massacre of Amboyna was allowed to remain unrevenged.
But the Dutch war, which was declared in 1672, the object of which
seems to have been the annihilation of the United Provinces as an
independent state, a century sooner than Providence had decreed that
calamitous event, met with great opposition in England, and every
engine was put to work to satisfy the people of the truth of the Lord
Chancellor Shaftesbury's averment, that the "States of Holland were
England's eternal enemies, both by interest and inclination." Dryden,
with the avowed intention of exasperating the nation against the Dutch,
assumed from choice, or by command, the unpromising subject of the
Amboyna massacre as the foundation of the following play. Exclusive
of the horrible nature of the subject, the colours are laid on too thick to
produce the desired effect. The monstrous caricatures, which are

exhibited as just paintings of the Dutch character, unrelieved even by
the grandeur of wickedness, and degraded into actual brutality, must
have produced disgust, instead of an