Giles Milton

It was remarkably brutal.

They get intelligence at one point that Nathaniel Courtauld is intending to leave Run Island and go to one of the other Banda Islands, where he hears there's a lot of unrest amongst the native population.

And he thinks this could herald the beginnings of a general uprising against the Dutch.

So it's a sort of vitally important moment for him.

And so he takes the risk, really, the very great risk in October 1620.

He's been on the island for like four years to try and cross the channel of water to the next island and find out what's taking place.

This is to prove an absolutely fatal mistake.

He sets off at night with his boy William, as he was called.

His boy William is his son or his sort of cabin boy?

It's a sort of cabin boy come slave servant who's helping him.

Man servant, really, or boy servant.

Williams always have the rough end of things on Empire.

It's a very tragic story.

So the two of them get into their rowing boat.

They're rowing out across the open water and the Dutch have laid an ambush.

It's about two o'clock or three o'clock in the morning where they see dimly glowing in the night, they see Nathaniel Courtauld's lantern and they wait until they're almost upon him and then they open fire.

Courtauld immediately fires back.

There's a running gun battle takes place on the water, but then Courtauld's gun jams

And in disgust, he throws it into the water.

And he's caught defenseless.