Series 03: Joseph Banks - Endeavour journal, 25 August 1768 - 12 July 1771 (vol. 2) - No. 0540
Primary tabs
Transcription
[Page 540]
436
Some account of Batavia
a kind of houses which mount about 8 Guns apeice, & seem to me to be the best defences against Indians I have ever seen; these are generaly plac'd in such situations, as will command the navigation of three or four Canals,
[Margin note] roads on Banks.
& at the same time as many roads upon their banks, some there are in the very town, & one of them it was which in the time of the chinese rebellion (as the duch call it) quickly leveld all the best Chinese houses to the ground, indeed I was told, that the natives are more afraid of these than any other kind of Defences, of them, are many in all parts of Java & the other Islands, in the posession of the Duch, I lamented much not being able to get a drawing & plan of one, which indeed had I been well I might easily have done, as I suppose they never could be jealous of a defence, which one gun would destroy in half an hour.
If the Dutch fortifications should be even quite as weak & difenceless as I,