The Reckoning

Abstract

The English government struggled for thirty years to receive restitution for the incident they had come to know as the Amboyna Massacre. This chapter traces the repercussions in the Indian Ocean and especially in Europe. In England, the English traders who had survived the conspiracy trial became the key witnesses for the East India Company. This chapter explores how these men created new lives for themselves in the wake of the trial. A central component to the success of the East India Company in securing restitution was the publication of old and new Amboyna pamphlets, as well as new illustrations, especially during the 1650s and the First Anglo-Dutch War. The Treaty of Westminster resolved all outstanding claims in 1654, but the animosities of the Amboyna crisis ensured that the English remained dissatisfied with a financial settlement alone and still looked for justice.