Their discussion centered on the Nambu affair of 1643, when the skipper Hendrick Cornelisz Schaep and nine members of the crew of the Breskens were captured in Yamada in Iwate Prefecture.

The Breskens and her sister ship the Castricum (under Maarten Gerritsz Vries) had been sent by order of the Governor General in the Dutch East Indies, Anthonio van Diemen, to search for the Gold and Silver Islands that were said to lie somewhere northeast off the coast of Japan.

In June 1643 the Breskens, which had been separated from the Castricum in a storm, entered the bay of Yamada in Nanbu domain in the northeast of Honshu.

While searching for fresh water and food, ten crewmembers under Captain Schaep were apprehended and brought to the domain capital of Morioka.

[9] Coyett said that Chinese were "little better than poor specimens of very effeminate men", when he believed that there was no plan to invade Taiwan.

[10] With his army decisively crushed by the Chinese under Koxinga, Coyett left Taiwan after the Siege of Fort Zeelandia with enough supply to reach Batavia.

After three years imprisonment he was tried for high treason, due to his failure to hold Taiwan or preserve vital commercial interests.

On 8 December 1658 Coyett remarried to Helena de Stereke, a widow of Pieter van Alphen's senior merchant.

In the book he accused the Dutch East India Company of ignorance and refusing to send backup, which caused him to lose Taiwan.