an in February, 1620, with
the intention of lying in wait for the Chinese ships that were going
from Manila, laden with the silver which they had received for the
goods which they had sold, but during a heavy storm the vessel with
all its cargo was wrecked on Hermosa Island. Six of the Dutch were
drowned. Those who escaped seized two boats that they found on the
shore, and robbed three Chinese ships of more than three hundred
thousand pesos. The patache was never seen again, and there is not
much doubt that it was lost with all hands on board. They sent another
large ship to Bantan, where they have a factory. This vessel, loaded
with supplies, went ashore and was lost; and one hundred and twenty
Japanese and three Dutchmen were drowned.

The English and Dutch being on the point of settling their quarrel by
fighting a pitched battle off Bantan near China in which both parties
must have been destroyed, chance would have it that two despatch-boats
arrived, one from Ynglaterra and the other from Olanda, bringing
the news of the confederation which had been formed between those
two states, [5] so that their quarrel was converted to rejoicing and
merriment. Then they sent off sixteen English vessels and ten Dutch
ships. One English ship was lost on the coast of China, as a result
of trying to capture a Portuguese vessel which was on its way from
India to Macan. Nothing was ever heard of three of the Dutch ships;
but the others came to lie in wait for the Portuguese galliots loaded
with silks which the Portuguese import into Japan. They followed
these as far as Nangasaqui without being able to chase one of them,
because they were too light, whereupon the enemy took shelter in their
port of Firando. The agreement of the confederation was as follows:
In order to avoid dissensions on both sides, they were all to come
into the English Company, and they should render accounts of what
either side had lost in the wars that they had waged; and whatever was
over and above, the other side was to pay. _Item_, that both parties
could alike enter the regions conquered by them, with ships, men,
and supplies; and that anything that they should acquire by conquest
should remain in the form in which the said States [of Holland] and
the English Company had there agreed. _Item_, that the spice trade
should be equally divided, each loading as many ships as the other,
and that they should go shares in their seizures; finally, that an
English capt