by Giles Milton
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The spice race could now begin.
The Portuguese had made spectacular progress in their quest to find a sea route to the East. Just forty years after their first tentative crossing of the equator in 1471, they had successfully sailed to the Spice Islands of the East Indies and returned with their ships crammed with pepper, nutmeg and cloves. These islands, known as the 'spiceries' or Moluccas, were scattered over an area of ocean more than half the size of Europe. Although these days they form
a single province of Indonesia, called Maluku, the hundred or so islands in fact fall into three distinct groups. To the north he the volcanic islands of Tidore and Ternate, powerful sultanates which spent much of the sixteenth century fighting a desperate battle to retain their independence. Some four hundred miles to the south of here are the islands of Amboyna and Ceram, rugged places whose sweet-smelling cloves would eventually spark a terrible and infamous massacre. The southernmost group, the Banda Islands, were the richest and least accessible of them all, requiring bravado and a deft hand to steer a vessel safely through the archipelago's treacherous waters.
The Portuguese touched at all of these islands and, before long, were consolidating their position by force of arms. The important spice port of Malacca fell under their control in 1511 and, just months later, the remote Banda Islands were first visited by a Portuguese carrack. Next, they seized the spice ports on India's west coast, wresting control from the Muslim middlemen, before returning to the outlying and far-flung 'spiceries'. Here they built a series of heavily guarded forts and bastions and, within a few years, the islands of Ternate and Tidore, Amboyna and Ceram, had all fallen into their grasp.
The other countries of Europe had got off to a faltering start in the spice race. Columbus had sailed westwards across the Atlantic in 1492 convinced that he could detect the whiff of spice in the air. Although he went to great lengths to persuade the King and Queen of Spain that he had found the East Indies, he had of course discovered America. The Venetian explorer John Cabot also believed that the quickest way to the East Indies was to sail west and he visited Arabia at a very early age in order to quiz the local merchants about 'whither spices are brought by caravans from distant countries'. These merchants were understandably reticent to part with such priceless information and spoke vaguely of spices coming from the easternmost reaches of the world. It was exactly what Cabot had hoped to hear and he concluded that 'presupposing the rotundity of the earth' — not a foregone conclusion even in those days — the merchants must have bought the spices 'at the north towards the west'.
Cabot was unable to interest any Venetian sponsors in a westerly voyage across the Atlantic so he travelled to England and persuaded King Henry VII to commission his search for the 'spiceries'. Setting sail across the Atlantic in 1497 he landed at Cape Breton Island which he confidently declared to be an uninhabited part of China. Although spices were distinctly thin on the ground Cabot returned to an England fascinated by his supposed discovery. 'Great honour is paid him,' wrote a Venetian merchant living in London, 'and he dresses in silk; and these English run after him like mad people.' So, indeed, did the King who promptly provided the finances for a second expedition.
On this new voyage Cabot decided to follow the coast of 'China' until he reached Japan where 'all the spices of the world originate'. Certain he would return with his ships filled with nutmeg, his confidence only faltered when the mercury slumped below zero and the icebergs grew ever more threatening.
Despite his failure to bring home a single nutmeg, Cabot's voyages aroused considerable interest in the ports of Spain and Portugal. One man in particular was keen to know more about his discoveries: Ferdinand Magellan, a 'gentleman of great spirit', had long believed there was a far quicker route to the Spice Islands than the lengthy voyage around the Cape of Good Hope and was sure that Cabot had been right to sail westwards across the Atlantic.
Magellan had sailed to the East Indies in his youth and would certainly have returned had circumstances allowed. But after taking part in a military campaign in Morocco, he was accused of treachery and informed by the Portuguese king that his services were no longer required. King Manuel had made a grave error in dismissing Magellan for he was an expert navigator who had read widely the geographical theories of his day. He argued that the only reason that Columbus and Cabot had failed to find the Spice Islands was that they had not found a passage through the American continent.
Magellan travelled to the court of King Charles V of Spain in 1518 and 'acquainted the Emperour that the islands of Banda and of the Molucca's [were] the only one store-house of nature for nutmegs and mace'. The King immediately realised that Magellan offered him the best chance of challenging the seemingly indomitable position of the Portuguese, and placed him in charge of a fleet of ships which were to sail southwards down the coast of Brazil, find a passage through to the Pacific Ocean, then sail west until they reached the 'islands of Banda'. It is fortunate that Magellan took with him a scholar by the name of Antonio Pigafetta, for Pigafetta faithfully recorded everything that happened on that historic first Spanish voyage to the Spice Islands. His journal, in turn, found its way into the hands of the learned English vicar Samuel Purchas whose monumental anthology of exploration, Purchas His Pilgrimes, was to inspire London's merchant adventurers.
Magellan's voyage began well: he revictualled in the Canary Islands, crossed the equator, and reached the South American coastline three months later. Here, simmering resentment between the Spanish crew and their Portuguese captain exploded into mutiny and Magellan was forced to hang the troublemakers from a hastily constructed gibbet. At that point the mutiny died down.
The remaining mutineers soon found their attentions diverted by the extraordinary behaviour of the natives; not least the giant-like menfolk of Patagonia who, noted Pigafetta, 'when they are sicke at the stomache they put an arrow half a yard downe the throat which makes them vomit greene choler and blood.'Their cure for headaches was no less dramatic; they gashed their heads open and purged the blood. And as soon as they detected the first chill of winter, 'they would truss up themselves so the genitall member is hidden in the body'.
A year after leaving Tenerife, Magellan's ship nudged through the straits that now bear his name and entered the warm waters of the Pacific. 'He was so glad thereof,' records his diarist, 'that for joy the teares fell from his eyes.' Magellan had been right all along: it was now simply a question of following the spice-filled breezes all the way to the East Indies.
Unfortunately it was not so simple. Magellan, like most explorers of his day, had no idea of the massive distances involved and after more than three months at sea with no sight of land his men began to starve. 'Having consumed all their biskits and other victuals, they fell into such necessitie that they were enforced to eate the powder that remained thereof, being now full of wormes and stinking like pisse by reason of the salt water. Their fresh water was also putrified and became yellow.' Soon even the worm-ridden powder ran out, forcing them 'to eate pieces of leather which were folded about certain great ropes of the shippes;
but these skinnes being very hard, by reason of the sunne, raine and winde, they hung them by a cord in the sea for the space of four or five days to mollifie them'. It was no diet for sick men and it soon took its toll: 'By reason of this famine, and unclean feeding, some of their gummes grew so over their teeth that they died miserably for hunger.'
Despite the terrible hardship, the ships limped on until they reached the Philippines where the men learned that they were nearing their goal. But Magellan was destined not to see the Spice Islands for he made the mistake of involving himself in a local power struggle and, during the fighting, was struck down and killed. It was a devastating blow to all those left alive and Pigafetta, shocked by the news, struggled to express their loss. 'There perished our guide, our light, and our support.'
So many men had died that a decision was taken to abandon one of the ships. The remaining vessels then
sailed for the most northerly of the Spice Islands, sighting the clove-covered cone of Tidore's volcano in the first week of November 1521. Suddenly, the lurid descriptions that characterise Pigafetta's journal acquire a more practical tone. Magellan's men had sailed half-way around the world to make money and, for the next few pages, Pigafetta records every conceivable weight and measure in use on the island.
Laden with twenty-six tons of cloves, a cargo of nutmeg, and sackloads of cinnamon and mace, the expedition's remaining two ships finally left the Spice Islands in the winter of 1521. The Trinidad got no farther than the harbour: rotten, leaking and hopelessly overloaded, she needed extensive repairs before making the return journey. With a tearful farewell, the crew of the Victoria set sail alone. The men faced an appalling homeward journey and more than half of them died of dysentery. Pigafetta, diligent as ever, noted every sickness and death and even found significance in the way the corpses floated. 'The corpses of the Christians floated with the face towards heaven,' he wrote,'but those of the Indians with the face downwards.'
Nine months after leaving the Spice Islands the Victoria at last reached Seville and, anchoring off the mole, 'discharged all her ordinance for joy'. Although her crew were half dead and Magellan was long-since buried, King Charles V was overjoyed and one of his first actions was to honour the captain, Sebastian del Cano, with a coat of arms. Its design included three nutmegs, two sticks of cinnamon and twelve cloves.
Portugal's merchants were livid at losing their short-lived monopoly and protested in the strongest terms to King Charles. They argued that the Spice Islands belonged to Portugal, not Spain, citing the infamous Treaty of Tordesillas. But their case was not as straightforward as they claimed. The Treaty of Tordesillas, signed some two decades previously, was based on a papal bull which had divided the world into two parts. Pope Alexander VI had drawn a line down the middle of the Atlantic which stretched 'from Pole Artike to the Pole Antartike' some hundred leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands. Any land discovered west of this line, declared the Pope, belonged to Spain. Everything east of the line belonged to Portugal. By the time the treaty had been signed, the Portuguese had successfully managed to shift the line westwards by several hundred miles allowing them to argue that Brazil, whose coastline was cut by the line, rightly belonged to them.
The treaty was easy enough to uphold with discoveries close to home but it was more complicated when dealing with distant and little-known islands. When continued on the far side of the world the Pontiff's line placed the Spice Islands unquestionably within the Portuguese sphere, but sixteenth-century maps were extremely inaccurate and the Spanish argued that these islands fell into their half of the globe and that their riches belonged to the king of Spain.
Unfortunately, no one could be sure who was right. In 1524, representatives from both sides submitted themselves to a board of inquiry but although they examined countless maps and charts no agreement was reached. It took a further five years of squabbling before King Charles of Spain sold his claims to the Spice Islands for the massive sum of 350,000 gold ducats.
This deal would have solved the problem had it been only the Spanish and Portuguese who were interested in the Spice Islands. But other powers were beginning to turn their attentions to the East: England, in particular, was developing an attachment to the sweet smell of spice. It could only be a matter of time before an English adventurer would once again attempt the journey.
Although the failure of Sir Hugh Willoughby's Arctic expedition brought to an abrupt end England's search for a North-East Passage, it did little to dampen the enthusiasm for sailing to the Spice Islands. Yet more than two decades were to pass before London's merchants contemplated financing a new expedition, and it was not until 1577 - some twenty-four years after Willoughby's voyage - that a flotilla of ships finally set sail under the command of Sir Francis Drake.
Drake's expedition was backed by Queen Elizabeth I and its ostensible object was to conclude trade treaties with the people of the South Pacific and to explore an unknown continent rumoured to exist in the southern hemisphere. But the Queen also gave Drake full licence to plunder Spanish ships and ports and to carry off as much treasure as his vessel could hold for, she told him, 'I would gladly be revenged on the King of Spain for divers injuries that I have received.' Since it was imperative that none of this information should fall into Spanish hands, the expedition was shrouded in secrecy from the very outset and the crew had no idea of their destination until the English coastline had receded into the distance.
The five ships under Drake's command, none of which exceeded the length of two London buses, used Magellan's route as their blueprint and revictualled in many of the same bays and harbours. These stops did not always go according to plan: dropping anchor in Patagonia the crew had fully expected to be entertained by giants vomiting 'green choler' and trussing up their genitals. Instead, they walked straight into an ambush and were only saved by swift intervention from Drake who picked up a musket, fired at a native, and, 'tore out his bellie and guts with greate torment, as it seemed by his crye, which was so hideous and horrible a roare, as if ten bulls had joined together in roaring'.
A few days later it was time to turn his fire on a fellow Englishman. One of Drake's subordinates, a 'gentelman' by the name of Thomas Doughty, was rumoured to be threatening mutiny. These rumours eventually reached the captain who promptly confronted Doughty with the allegations. What happened next is difficult to determine for Doughty had many enemies and each account tells a different story. But all follow a similar line: that Doughty admitted his guilt to an astonished Drake and was given three choices — to be executed, set on land, or return to
England to answer the charges before a full council. Doughty showed not a moments hesitation: 'He professed that with all his heart he did embrace the first branch of the general's proffer ... and without any dallying or delaying the time he came forth and kneeled downe, preparing at once his necke for the axe and his spirit for heaven.'
With this unpleasant episode over the ships continued on their way, successfully crossing from the Atlantic into the Pacific through the notoriously tempestuous straits. Drake's smaller vessels had already been abandoned. Now, sailing into a storm, he lost sight of the second ship in his fleet (it had, in fact, headed back towards England) leaving his flagship alone and in a perilous state. Tossed about 'like a ball in a racket' Drake raced up the South American coastline plundering wherever he could before steering his vessel westwards in the direction of the Spice Islands, a desolate journey for there was 'nothing in our view but aire and sea [for] the space of full sixty-eight dayes together'. At last — more than a generation after the Portuguese had first sailed to the East Indies — the English vessel sighted the luxuriant shores of the Spice Islands.
Drake had intended to drop anchor at the volcanic island of Tidore but as he edged his ship through the treacherous shallows a canoe drew alongside carrying a viceroy from the neighbouring island of Ternate. Arguing that Tidore was all but controlled by the hated Portuguese, he begged the English commander to change his course. Drake consented and, selecting a fine velvet cloak from his cabin, asked that it might be presented to the King with the message that he had come to buy spices. The messenger promptly returned with the news that the King 'would sequester the commodities and traffique of his whole island [and] reserve it to the intercourse of our nation'.
Drake and his men were treated to a fabulous display of Oriental politesse when the King at last visited their ship. His courtiers, all in white linen, rowed round and round the vessel and 'as they passed by us, did us a kind of homage with great solemnity, the greatest personages beginning first, with reverend countenance and behaviour, to bow their bodies right to the ground'. The King was not far behind. 'He also with six grave and ancient fathers in his canoe approaching, did at once, together with them, yield us a reverend kind of obeisance, in far more humble manner than was to be expected.' Drake found him 'of tall stature, very corpul
ent and well set together, of a very princely and gracious countenance; his respect amongst his own was such that neither his viceroy nor any other counsellors dared speak to him unless they were upon their knees'.
The English were at first unsure how to react to the affected manners of the East but they eventually commemorated the occasion in time-honoured fashion. They primed their cannon and listened with delight as 'our ordinance thundered, which we mixed with great store of small shot, among which sounding our trumpets and other instruments of music.' The King was dazzled by the fireworks and 'so much delighted that, requesting our music to come unto the boat, he joyned his canoe to the same, and was towed at least a whole hour together, with the boat at the stern of our ship'.
After a further blitz of cannon fire the King made his excuses and left, but not before he had sanctioned the English to buy whatever spices they needed from his island. By the time Drake was ready to leave Ternate his ship was so weighed down with goods - and so low in the water — that she was 'laid up fast upon a desperate shoal'. To lighten her, eight of the cannon were cast into the water, followed by much of the meal and pulse, and finally three tons of the precious cloves that he had bought. As the tide turned the ship was slowly lifted off the shoal and started on the long voyage back to England.