Complex sentence: After a public reading of the letter, the governor announced that there were no ripe cloves on the island, and Middleton, suspecting Ternatan duplicity, decided to sail for Taffasoa where the English managed to acquire more cloves just before the Ternate attacked the town.
Split into simpler sentences: After a public reading of the letter, the governor announced that there were no ripe cloves on the island, and Middleton, suspecting Ternatan duplicity, decided to sail for Taffasoa. They were more forthcoming, and the English managed to acquire an amount of cloves for them before the Ternate attacked the town.