DUTCH OUTRAGE ON AN ENGLISH CAPTAIN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XVII, Issue 5944, 4 December 1880, Page 7

DUTCH OUTRAGE ON AN ENGLISH CAPTAIN.

The Straits Times, Singapore, announces that the Government of that place, at the request of the Dutch, has prohibited the exportation of arms and gunpowder. The following extract from the Straits Times will be of interest in regard to the relations of the English and Dutch in the Malay Archipelago:—"Captain Griffin, the owner and masterof the British bari[ueNil Desperaiulum, a well-known and respected trader in the Archipelago for the last 30 years or more, has, we regret to learn, got into difficulties with the Dutch authorities at Amboiua, and, if the account of the circumstances as detailed to us is correct, which we have no reason to doubt, has been treated for a very trivial offence—what is in fact no offence at all except under Dutch law—in a very harsh and arbitrary manner, a. mauuer which certainly does not appear to conform with international courtesy, and which no Dutch trader would experience here. He has been fined 1000 guilders, and his vessel placed under the guns of a Dutch gunboat till the fine is paid, because a 'seacunnie'deserted from his vessel in Ternate Harbour in January last year and he did not report the matter at once to the Dutch authorities, the fact being that the man deserted just as the vessel was leaving Ternate, and it was not discovered until the vessel was well out of the harbour. Captain Griffin has been trading ever since in Dutch waters, and last year visited Ternate, Banda, and Amboina several times, receiving regular port clearances each time, and hearing nothing about the deserter, although there is reason to believe his whereabouts were wellknown to some, at least, ot the local authorities. In .January this year, just a year after the occurrence, the case was tried and given against him in his absence, and indeed that was alleged as one of the reasons for inflicting such a large and upon tlie face of it such an unreasonable line as 1000 guilders. To all remonstrance against such a line for such an oll'ence and to his request lor a new trial the only reply by the local authorities was that he should not uoiue into Dutch ports without knowing the Dutch language and Dutch law. Meantime his ship was placed at Amboina in the beginning oE this month under the fire of a Dutch gunboat, and he has been told to pay, or it will be seized and sold at once."