On 12 March 1740, Willem Maurits Bruyninck replaced Van Imhoff as governor of Ceylon and Imhoff returned to Batavia, which he found in a precarious situation. Former Governor-General Adriaan Valckenier believed that the Chinese population in the area around Batavia had grown too large. His plan to relocate the unemployed population to Ceylon and the Cape Colony in South Africa failed when a rumour alleging that the Dutch were planning to throw Chinese people overboard on the high seas led to an insurrection against the VOC in which 50 Dutch soldiers were killed. Valckenier had then responded with a counter-attack on 9 October 1740 that was meant to put insurgents under control. This quickly got out of hand, and – despite an amnesty proclaimed on 11 October – led to the 1740 Batavia massacre which went on for several days and which killed anywhere between 5,000 and 10,000 mostly Chinese inhabitants.