Amboyna Massacre - War of Pamphlets

War of Pamphlets

The East India Company was unhappy with the outcome and in 1632 its directors published an exhaustive brochure, comprising all the relevant papers, with extensive comments and rebuttals of the Dutch position. The Dutch had already sought to influence public opinion with an anonymous pamphlet, probably authored by its Secretary, Willem Boreel in 1624. At the time, ambassador Carleton had procured its suppression as a "libel" by the States-General. However, an English minister in Flushing, John Winge, inadvertently translated it, and sent it to England, where it displeased the East India Company.

The East India Company brochure contained the gruesome details of the tortures, as related in its original "Relation". These details may not all have been true, but they were calculated to excite much anger at the Dutch. For this reason they were useful for propaganda purposes whenever the exigencies of the diplomatic situation demanded a rekindling of resentment of English public opinion against the Dutch.

So when Oliver Cromwell needed a pretext for the First Anglo-Dutch war the brochure was reprinted as "A Memento for Holland" (1652). The Dutch lost the war and were forced to accept a condition in the 1654 Treaty of Westminster, calling for the exemplary punishment of the culprits, "then still alive." However, no culprits appear to have been still alive at the time. Moreover, after arbitration on the basis of the treaty, the heirs of the English victims were awarded a total of £3615 in compensation.

The brochure and its allegations also played a role at the start of the Second Anglo-Dutch War. The annexation of the Dutch colony New Amsterdam (currently New York City) was justified with a rather farfetched reference to the Amboyna Massacre. The Treaty of Breda (1667), ending this war, appeared to have finally settled the matter.

However, during the Third Anglo-Dutch War, the matter was again raised in a propagandistic context. John Dryden wrote a play, entitled "Amboyna or the Cruelties of the Dutch to the English Merchants," apparently at the behest of his patron, who had been one of the chief negotiators of the Secret treaty of Dover that caused England's entry into that war. The play embellishes the affair by attributing the animus of Governor Van Speult against Gabriel Towerson to an amorous rivalry between the (fictitious) son of the governor and Towerson over an indigenous princess. After the son rapes the beauty, Towerson kills the son in a duel. The governor then takes his revenge in the form of the "massacre."