Page:History of India Vol 7.djvu/199

CLOSE OF THE AMBOYNA AFFAIR 165 It was not till the unhappy distractions of the second Stuart's reign came to their tragic close, and until the Dutch found that a real man again ruled England, that they conceded to Cromwell, after war, what a little firmness might have secured at the outset to James. At length, in April, 1654, the States-General agreed " that justice be done upon those who were partakers or accomplices in the massacre of the English at Am- boyna, as the Republic of England is pleased to term that fact, provided any of them be living. ,, Cromwell brooked no delay. Within five months all claims and counter-claims arising during forty-one years had been examined. In August the general damages of £85,000 were awarded to the London Company, together with £3615 to the heirs of the men done to death at Am- boyna; and Pularoon was restored to English rule. But this tardy justice failed to efface Amboyna from the English mind. The spectres of the tortured vic- tims stood between the two great Protestant powers during a century. The memory of a great wrong unre- dressed and of innocent blood unavenged embittered their trade rivalry, intensified each crisis of political strain, and furnished a popular cry for two wars. Dry- den's " Tragedy of Amboyna," produced in the fiftieth year after the execution, has been not unfairly de- scribed as his one literary effort which is wholly worth- less except as a curiosity. Yet it serves to show how the story deepened into a darker hue with age. The opening dialogue between Van Speult and the Dutch fiscal reveals their hatred to the English. Van