too small. On which the said Captain Towerson replied that he had already persuaded the Japanese and others and they were willing to assist him. He would not (he said) have want of people for all of them were willing. Moreover the said Price confessed he had been used voluntarily to persuade the Japanese and others, and that the Japanese to the number of twelve at the time the plot would have been acted upon, would first have murdered the guard and the governor if he was there; and then Captain Towerson and the merchants and all their people (whom he would have ordered from the factory for that purpose) would have come to the rescue. . . . They also agreed that all Dutchmen who would not agree with them should be murdered. The money and merchandise of the Company they would have divided amongst each other."
Such was the statement which was extorted from this poor feckless creature after "little or no torture." It was a preposterous story on the face of it, A score of English without arms, without ships, without military organization of any kind, with the aid of a dozen Japanese were to capture the great Dutch stronghold with its substantial garrison, subvert the entire Dutch power, and in the end divide amongst themselves as spoils of war the property of a strong mercantile organization which at the time was in intimate alliance with their own Company! The only possible way in which such a scheme could have been made feasible was by the association of a wide reaching native rebellion with the conspiracy, and even then it would have been a most desperate venture.
Dutch fears, however, saw in the concocted nonsense a full confirmation of their own excited imaginings. Orders
