"Ah!" replied the ruffian, "you would like to die a nobleman's death, you dog!" Food was now withheld, and Van der Berg had to live on the fish-bones and other garbage which he found on the floor of his cell. He ultimately managed to escape from his life in death. Apart from the record of the writer's own sufferings, Van der Berg's diary throws a lurid light on the relations of the Portuguese and the Dutch. Here is one striking passage: "I will write you what an Englishman told me on oath, that they cut the nose and ears of some Dutchmen and then drowned them: yea, some of them were flayed before they were drowned and died as martyrs through the Inquisition." It is in these and similar chronicles of horror of the period that we may look for the explanation of the ruthlessness with which the Dutch carried on the war against Portugal.
English and Dutch co-operation, on an extensive scale at all events, ended with the expedition of 1626. After this each fought the Portuguese in its own way. The Dutch sent an annual fleet to blockade Goa; the English offered a sturdy resistance at Surat. In the latter case, the operations were facilitated by the grant of a firman by the Emperor, authorizing the English to wage war on the Portuguese in Mogul territory if necessary. Acting on this permit, a body of men from the English ships was landed on the shore near Swally and made a successful attack on a Portuguese force encountered in the vicinity. As the first fight in which an organized body of Englishmen was concerned in India, this skirmish, amid the sandhills of the Guzerat coast, has an historic significance. In its immediate influence on the relations of the two races, it was also not devoid of importance, for the contest
