Amboyna Massacre - Aftermath

Aftermath

In the summer of 1623 the Englishmen who had been pardoned and acquitted, sailed to Batavia, and complained to the Dutch governor-general Pieter de Carpentier and the Council of Defence about the Amboyna affair, which they said was a false accusation based upon a fantasy and the confessions had been obtained only by severe torture. When the English could not get redress in Batavia, they traveled to England, accompanied by the English factor at Batavia. Their story caused an uproar in England. The directors of the EIC asked that the English government demand reparations from the VOC and exemplary punishment of the Amboina judges from the Dutch government.

According to the English ambassador Sir Dudley Carleton the version of events as he presented it, also caused much anger at the VOC in Dutch government circles. However, the VOC soon presented its version of events which contradicted the English version in essential respects. The Dutch States-General proposed a joint Anglo-Dutch commission of inquiry to establish the facts, but the suggestion was rejected by the English as too time-consuming. The Dutch did not want to execute the culprits summarily, as the English wished, so the States-General commissioned an inquiry by delegated judges from the highest courts in the Dutch republic to investigate the matter. The Amboina judges were recalled from the East-Indies and put under house arrest.

The trial progressed slowly because the court of inquiry wished to cross-examine the English witnesses. The English government balked at this demand, because it felt it could not compel the witnesses to travel to the Republic. Besides, as the English based their case on the incompetence of the court to try employees of the EIC (according to the English interpretation of the Treaty of Defence), the executions were ipso facto illegal in the English view, and therefore constituted a judicial murder. This contention could be decided without an examination of the witnesses. The Dutch, however, maintained that the court at Amboina had been competent, and therefore concentrated their inquiry on possible misconduct of the judges.

The English witnesses traveled to the Dutch republic in 1630 with Sir Henry Vane the Elder. They were made available to the court under restrictive conditions. The draft-verdict of the court (an acquittal of the accused) was presented to the new English king Charles I in 1632 for approval (as agreed beforehand by the two governments). It was rejected, but the accused judges were released.