and twenty thousand men.  They retired to Bancalis, on the eastern coast of Sumatra, and shortly afterwards sailed for Achin, the Portuguese not daring to pursue their victory, both on account of the damage they had sustained and their apprehension of the Hollanders, who were expected at Malacca.  The king proposed that the prisoners taken should be mutually given up, which was agreed to, and was the first instance of that act of humanity and civilisation between the two powers.

1619.

Three years afterwards the king made a conquest of the cities of Kedah and Perak on the Malayan coast, and also of a place called Dilli in Sumatra.  This last had been strongly fortified by the assistance of the Portuguese, and gave an opportunity of displaying much skill in the attack.  Trenches were regularly opened before it and a siege carried on for six weeks ere it fell.  In the same year the king of Jorcan (a place unknown at present by that name) fled for refuge to Malacca with eighty sail of boats, having been expelled his dominions by the king of Achin.  The Portuguese were not in a condition to afford him relief, being themselves surrounded with enemies and fearful of an attack from the Achinese more especially; but the king was then making preparations against an invasion he heard was meditated by the viceroy of Goa.  Reciprocal apprehensions kept each party on the defensive.

1621.

The French being desirous of participating in the commerce of Achin, of which all the European nations had formed great ideas, and all found themselves disappointed in, sent out a squadron commanded by General Beaulieu, which arrived in January 1621, and finally left it in December of the same year.  He brought magnificent presents to the king, but these did not content his insatiable avarice, and he employed a variety of mean arts to draw from him further gifts.  Beaulieu met also with many difficulties, and was forced to submit to much extortion in his endeavours to procure a loading of pepper, of which Achin itself, as has been observed, produced but little.  The king informed him that he had some time since ordered all the plants to be destroyed, not only because the cultivation of them proved an injury to more useful agriculture, but also lest their produce might tempt the Europeans to serve him, as they had served the kings of Jakatra and Bantam.  From this apprehension he had lately been induced to expel the English and Dutch from their settlements at Priaman and Tiku, where the principal quantity of pepper was procured, and of which places he changed the governor every third year to prevent any connexions dangerous to his authority from being formed.  He had likewise driven the Dutch from a factory they were attempting to settle at Padang; which place appears to be the most remote on the western coast of the island to which the Achinese conquests at any time extended.

1628.