In 1623, the English factory (trading station) at Amboina in the Moluccas was attacked by the Dutch VOC troops and ten Englishmen were tortured and killed. This opened several decades of conflict between England and Holland in which, despite occasional successes, the English consistently came off worse. At one point a Dutch fleet even sailed up the Thames and attacked Sheerness, destroying the ships in Chatham and Rochester dockyards.42
