He had committed on my person, sir,

An impious rape; first tied me to that tree,
And there my husband found me, whose revenge
Was such, as heaven and earth will justify.

Har. I know not what heaven will, but earth shall not.

Beam. Her story carries such a face of truth,

Ye cannot but believe it.

Col. The other, a malicious ill patch'd lie. Fisc. Yes, you are proper judges of his crime, Who, with the rest of your accomplices, Your countrymen, and Towerson the chief, Whom we too kindly used, would have surprised The fort, and made us slaves; that shall be proved, More soon than you imagine; I found it out This evening.

Tow. Sure the devil has lent thee all his stock of falsehood, and must be forced hereafter to tell truth. Beam. Sir, it is impossible you should believe it. Har. Seize them all!

Col. You cannot be so base.

Har. I'll be so just, till I can hear your plea Against this plot; which if not proved, and fully, You are quit; mean time, resistance is but vain.

Tow. Provided that we may have equal hearing, I am content to yield, though I declare,

You have no power to judge us. [Gives his sword. Beam. Barbarous, ungrateful Dutch!

Har. See them convey'd apart to several prisons, Lest they combine to forge some specious lie In their excuse.

Let Towerson and that woman too be parted.

Isab. Was ever such a sad divorce made on a

bridal night!

But we before were parted, ne'er to meet.
Farewell, farewell, my last and only love!
Tow. Curse on my fond credulity, to think

There could be faith or honour in the Dutch!Farewell, my Isabinda, and farewell,

My much wrong'd countrymen! remember yet, That no unmanly weakness in your sufferings Disgrace the native honour of our isle:

For you I mourn, grief for myself were vain; I have lost all, and now would lose my pain. [Exeunt.

ACT V.

SCENE I.-A Table set out.

Enter HARMAN, FISCAL, VAN HERRING, and two Dutchmen: They sit. Boy, and Waiters, Guards.

Har. My sorrow cannot be so soon digested for losing of a son I loved so well; but I consider great advantages must with some loss be bought; as this rich trade which I this day have purchased with his death: yet let me be revenged, and I shall still live on, and eat and drink down all my griefs. Now to the matter, Fiscal.

Fisc. Since we may freely speak among ourselves, all I have said of Towerson was most false. You were consenting, sir, as well as I, that Perez should be hired to murder him, which he refusing when he was engaged, 'tis dangerous to let him longer live. Van. Her. Despatch him; he will be a shrewd witness against us, if he returns to Europe.

Fisc. I have thought better, if you please,-to kill him by form of law, as accessary to the English plot, which I have long been forging.

Har. Send one to seize him strait. [Exit a Messenger.] But what you said, that Towerson was

guiltless of my son's death, I easily believe, and never thought otherwise, though I dissembled.

Van Her. Nor I; but it was well done to feign that story.

1 Dutch. The true one was too foul.

2 Dutch. And afterwards to draw the English off from his concernment, to their own,—I think 'twas rarely managed that!

Har. So far, 'twas well; now to proceed, for I would gladly know, whether the grounds are plausible enough of this pretended plot.

Fisc. With favour of this honourable court, give me but leave to smooth the way before you. Some two or three nights since, (it matters not,) a Japan soldier, under Captain Perez, came to a centinel upon the guard, and in familiar talk did question him about this castle, of its strength, and how he thought it might be taken; this discourse the other told me early the next morning: I thereupon did issue private orders, to rack the Japanese, myself being pre

sent.

Har. But what's this to the English?

Fisc. You shall hear : I asked him, when his pains were strongest on him, if Towerson, or the English factory, had never hired him to betray the fort? he answered, (as it was true) they never had; nor was his meaning more in that discourse, than as a soldier to inform himself, and so to pass the time.

Van Her. Did he confess no more?

Fisc. You interrupt me. I told him I was certainly informed the English had designs upon the castle, and if he frankly would confess their plot, he should not only be released from torment, but bounteously rewarded: Present pain and future hope, in fine, so wrought upon him, he yielded to subscribe whatever I pleased; and so he stands committed.

Har. Well contrived; a fair way made, made, upon accusation, to put them all to torture.

this

2 Dutch. By his confession, all of them shall die, even to their general, Towerson.

Har. He stands convicted of another crime, for which he is to suffer.

Fisc. This does well to help it though: For Towerson is here a person publicly employed from England, and if he should appeal, as sure he will, you have no power to judge him in Amboyna.

Van Her. But in regard of the late league and union betwixt the nations, how can this be answered? 1 Dutch. To torture subjects to so great a king, a pain never heard of in their happy land, will sound but ill in Europe.

Fisc. Their English laws in England have their force; and we have ours, different from theirs at home. It is enough, they either shall confess, or we will falsify their hands to make them. Then, for the apology, let me alone; I have it writ already to a tittle, of what they shall subscribe; this I will publish, and make our most unheard of cruelties to seem most just and legal.

Har. Then, in the name of him, who put it first into thy head to form this damned false plot, proceed we to the execution of it! And to begin; first seize we their effects, rifle their chests, their boxes, writings, books, and take of them a seeming inventory; but all to our own use.-I shall grow young with thought of this, and lose my son's remembrance! Fisc. Will you not please to call the prisoners in? At least inquire what torments have extorted.

Har. Go thou and bring us word. [Exit FISCAL.] Boy, give me some tobacco, and a stoup of wine, boy. Boy. I shall, sir.

Har. And a tub to leak in, boy; when was this table without a leaking vessel ?

Van Her. That's an omission.

1 Dutch. A great omission. 'Tis a member of the table, I take it so.

Har. Never any thing of moment was done at our council-table without a leaking tub, at least in my time; great affairs require great consultations, great consultations require great drinking, and great drinking a great leaking vessel.

Van Her. I am even drunk with joy already, to see our godly business in this forwardness.

Enter FISCal.

Har. Where are the prisoners?
Fisc. At the door.

Har. Bring them in; I'll try if we can face them down by impudence, and make them to confess.

Enter BEAMONT and COLLINS, guarded.

You are not ignorant of our business with you: the cries of your accomplices have already reached your ears; and your own consciences, above a thousand summons, a thousand tortures, instruct you what to do. No farther juggling, nothing but plain sincerity and truth to be delivered now; a free confession will first atone for all your sins above, and may do much below to gain your pardons. Let me exhort you, therefore, be you merciful, first to yourselves, and make acknowledgment of your conspiracy.

Beam. What conspiracy?

Fisc. Why la you, that the devil should go masked, with such a seeming honest face! I warrant you know of no such thing?

Har. Were not you, Mr Beamont, and you, Collins, both accessary to the horrid plot, for the surprisal of this fort and island?