"Even when great cities were attacked and seized, the defence was not stubborn and desperate except in the unusual case that a surrounding army cut off all means of retreat. The Dutch general Coen was told that "the Pangeran of Banten fears no Portuguese, Spanish, Hollanders, or Englishmen, but only the [King of] Mataram. From the latter, he says, no one can flee, but for the others the whole mountains are sufficient for us; they cannot follow us there with their ships." The river ports of eastern Sumatra, Malaya, or Borneo often shifted far inland in response to a seaborne attack. When an English party went to buy pepper at the once flourishing town of Inderagiri in Sumatra, they spent two days looking in vain for some trace of where it had been and then learned that the whole population had moved three days' journey up the river in response to an Acehnese invasion six years earlier."
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Reid A (1988) Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce 1450β1680, Yale University Press, New Haven, Vol. I., p. 122ff
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Anthony_Reid_(academic)
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Anthony Reid (academic)
1450 β 1680
Anthony Reid (19 June 1939 β 8 June 2025) was a New Zealand-born historian of Southeast Asia.
7 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Anthony Reid (academic) β
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