In 1624, the English East India Company authorized the publication of a sensational book, A true relation of the unjust, cruell, and barbarous proceedings against the English at Amboyna in the East Indies: by the Neatherlandish governour and councel there. The book was part of a pamphlet war between the English and the Dutch and was reprinted throughout the century.
The frontispiece depicts the torture and execution of English traders in one of the spice islands of what is today eastern Indonesia. Both the English and Dutch were new to the lucrative trade in cloves, mace, and nutmeg and were vying for their control. A recent treaty had supposedly settled matters, allowing the English to trade alongside the Dutch, but mistrust was in the air.
In early 1623, the Dutch governor of Amboina accused English traders, Japanese mercenaries, and a Portuguese slave overseer of plotting a coup. The Dutch used torture to extract confessions. They bound each man to a doorframe and tied a cloth around each face so that little water could escape. “That done, they poured the Water softly upon his Head until the Cloath was full up to the Mouth and Nostrils . . . so that he could not draw breath, but he must withal suck in the water: Which being still continued to be poured in softly, forced all his inward parts, to come out of his Nose, Ears, and Eyes, and . . . brought him to a swoun or fainting.”
When waterboarding was insufficient, they lit candles under armpits and feet. The author points out that the torture resulted in false confessions and unjust executions. When the book was printed, it caused outrage in England and fueled anti-Dutch sentiment.