by Giles Milton
Although every inch of space on the vessels was taken up with fresh supplies, the hot southern climate was still taking its toll on the crew and it was decided to land at the
island of Cirne — now known as Mauritius — where lemons were said to be plentiful.
Unfortunately, the wind unexpectedly changed direction and the little fleet was blown towards Madagascar instead. Arriving on Christmas Day in the bay of Atongill a reconnaissance party discovered a series of carvings on a rock close to the water. It had long been the practice to carve upon rocks the dates of arrival and departure of ships so that straggling vessels might know the fate of the rest of their fleet. From these carvings, Lancaster discovered to his dismay that five Dutch ships had called here just two months earlier. They had lost more than two hundred men to dysentery while they lay at anchor.
History soon began to repeat itself on the English ships. First the Red Dragons master's mate died, then the preacher, the surgeon, and ten crew members. Others suffered more violent deaths: as the master's mate was lowered into the ground, the captain of the Ascension rowed ashore to attend the funeral. While doing so, he had the misfortune to enter the line of musket-shot that was frequently fired on such occasions and both he and the boatswain's mate were killed,'so that they that went to see the buriall of another,' records the ship's diarist, 'and were both buried there themselves'.
It was a most unfortunate accident; Captain William Brund was popular among the sea dogs he commanded and was sorely missed. His death reinforced the growing feeling that Madagascar was not a place to linger, so as soon as the Red Dragons little pinnace had been assembled (it was brought out from England in kit form) the fleet once more set sail.
The expanse of the Indian Ocean presented Lancaster with fewer problems than the Atlantic. A near-catastrophe was avoided when the pinnace detected the reefs and shoals surrounding the Chagos Archipelago and by the second week of May the ships had caught sight of the remote Nicobar Islands — missed on Lancaster's first voyage — where they resolved to revictual. To their surprise they discovered that the fantastical writings of medieval travellers, which spoke of men with horns and green faces, appeared to be correct. According to the ship's journal, the island priest 'had upon his head a pair of horns turning backward', while others had 'their faces painted green, black, and yellow, and their horns also painted with the same colour; and behind them, upon their buttocks, a tail hanging down, very much like the manner as in some painted clothes we paint the devil in our country'.
It is ironic that just as sceptics in England were beginning to question the veracity of accounts by medieval 'explorers' like Sir John Mandeville, genuine travellers were reporting sights that bore witness to their more outlandish tales. Sir Walter Ralegh was one of those sceptics who changed his opinion of Mandeville after hearing the reports filtering back from the mysterious East. 'Mandeville's reports were holden for fables many yeeres,' he wrote, 'and yet since the East Indies were discovered, we find his relations true of such things as heretofore were held incredible.'
On 5 June 1602, more than sixteen months after leaving Woolwich, Lancaster's fleet finally arrived at the Sumatran port of Achin. A rich, powerful and cosmopolitan city, its sea power enabled it to exert influence over the western approaches to the East Indies and the Malay Peninsula. Although its shipping proved unable to compete with the Portuguese fleet anchored off Malacca on the far side of the Straits, Achin was nevertheless a vibrant commercial centre
.
When Lancaster arrived here he counted no fewer than sixteen ships at anchor, including vessels from Gujarat, Bengal, Calicut and the Malay Peninsula.
Lancaster's chief pilot, John Davis, had visited Achin on his voyage with Cornelis Houtman and vividly recorded his meeting with the city's powerful ruler Ala-uddin Shah. The Sultan, he had discovered, was a keen Anglophile and had chatted enthusiastically to Houtman about England's seafaring victories — an enthusiasm not reciprocated by the Dutchman. When Ala-uddin learned that Houtman had a genuine Englishman on board he demanded to meet him immediately. 'He inquired much of England,' wrote Davis in his diary, 'of the Queen, of her Pashas, and how she could hold wars with so great a King as the Spaniard (for he thinks that Europe is all Spanish.) In these his demands he was fully satisfied, as it seemed to his great good liking.'
While in audience with the Sultan, Davis was gathering important information about Ala-uddin's personality and tastes; information which proved invaluable when he arrived back in England. Not only was the Company able to draft a suitable letter to the Sultan written in Queen Elizabeth's own hand, they were also able to buy him presents that were likely to find favour. He was a man of extravagant tastes; 'a lusty man, but exceeding gross and fat' - according to Davis - who was more than one hundred years old, 'as they say'. According to local tradition, he had been brought up a humble fisherman but, courageous and daring in wartime, was given command of the army and married to a relative of the reigning monarch. Ala-uddin promptly murdered the king and assumed the purple, ruling the country with an iron fist. Born to fight, he had held Queen Elizabeth in the highest regard ever since news of the Spanish Armada's defeat had filtered across the Indian Ocean. Now, with Lancaster's fleet anchored in the bay, he was keen to meet one of her most trusted servants.
John Middleton, captain of the Hector, was the first to step ashore; he told the Sultan he had been sent by Lancaster to inform His Majesty that their fleet bore a letter from the Queen of England. The Sultan was most pleased and, presenting Middleton with a turban wrought with gold, he invited Lancaster to come ashore after he had rested himself for a day
Lancaster acquitted himself well and, if the accounts are accurate, handled the Sultan with aplomb. Stepping ashore, he was welcomed by Ala-uddin's messengers who immediately demanded the Queen's letter so they could take it to the King. Lancaster refused, saying that such a letter, from so powerful a monarch, might be delivered only by himself.
The Sultan, too, was anxious to impress upon Lancaster the magnificence of his court and lavished every available resource on the English entourage:
He presently sent sixe great elephants, with many trumpets, drums, and streamers, with many people, to accompany the generall [Lancaster] to the court, so that the presse was exceeding great. The biggest of these elephants was about thirteene or fourteene foot high; which had a small castle like a coach upon his back, covered with crimson velvet. In the middle thereof was a great basin of gold, and a peece of silke exceedingly richly wrought to cover it, under which Her Majesties letter was put. The generall was mounted upon another of the elephants. Some of his attendants rode; others went on foote. But when he came to the court gate, there a nobleman stayed the general, till he had gone in to know the king's further pleasure ... And when the general came to the king's presence, he made his obeysance after the manner of the country, declaring that hee was sent from the most mightie Queene of England to congratulate with High Highnesse, and treat with him concerning a peace and amitie with His Majestie, if it pleased him to entertaine the same.
First, Ala-uddin was presented with the gifts: a basin of solid silver with a fountain in the middle, a huge silver goblet, a rich looking glass, a case of fine pistols, a magnificent headpiece, and a finely wrought embroidered belt. The Sultan received all these graciously, but was particularly taken by the fan of feathers he was given. He called for one of his attendant mistresses and ordered that she fan him continually. This, the cheapest of all the gifts, was a runaway success: 'the thing that most pleased him'.
Now it was time to present the Queen's letter which, it was hoped, would make a favourable impression. Wrapped in silk, decorated with fabulous swirls of calligraphy and delivered to the Sultan in a gold ewer securely fastened to a huge bull elephant, it was given the most dramatic billing possible.
The letter's contents were, by turn, flattering, obsequious, anti-Portuguese and businesslike. Pandering to the Sultan's vanity, but at the same time imploring favo
urable trading privileges, it described Ala-uddin as 'our loving brother', recognising 'the honorable and truly royall fame which hath hither stretched'. After glorifying him for his 'humane and noble usage of strangers', it went on to attack the Portuguese and Spanish who 'pretend themselves to be monarchs and absolute lords of all these kingdomes and provinces'. Finally, after more than two pages of preamble, it arrived at the substance. Queen Elizabeth I, it said, would like to begin regular commerce with Ala-uddin, to settle merchants in his capital and open a warehouse for the stockpiling of provisions. 'Trade,' it grandiloquently informed His Highness, 'not only breeds intercourse and exchange of merchandise ... but also engenders love and friendship betwixt all men.'
Reading it in private Ala-uddin was captivated by the Queen's sentiments and found himself agreeing wholeheartedly. He told Lancaster that he was well pleased with what he had read and accepted all the Queen's requests. Once the deal had been signed it was time for the Sultan's banquet, a dizzying affair in which prodigious quantities of food and alcohol were followed into the banqueting room by a troupe of the Sultan's damsels and musicians. The food was served on beaten golden platters while the arak, a fiery and extremely alcoholic rice wine, was knocked back in copious quantities. Throughout the meal the Sultan, who sat aloft in a gallery, kept offering toasts to his new-found friend. Lancaster had to beg Ala-uddin that he might mix his arak with water, 'for a little will serve to bring one asleep'. The Sultan, gracious as ever, consented.
Next came the cabaret. Sultan Ala-uddin 'caused his damosels to come forth and dance, and his women to play musicke unto them; and these women were richly attired and adorned with bracelets and jewels'. This performance was a special treat, 'for these are not usually seene of any but such as the king will greatly honour.' But the entertainments did not end here; there were endless other activities to amuse the newcomers including a lengthy bout of cock-fighting, the Sultan's favourite sport. And although not recorded in the ships' journals, it is quite possible that some of the more daring crew members took part in the celebrated Achinese speciality, the sub-aqua drinking bouts in which guests perched on low stools in a river while court butlers served generous beakers of arak.
Although Lancaster was delighted by the Sultan's reception he soon grew concerned that he had yet to buy a single ounce of spice. Worse, he now learned that pepper — far from costing four pieces-of-eight for the hundredweight — was actually being sold for almost twenty. Realising that he could not hope to fill his ships in Achin, Lancaster returned to the Sultan and diplomatically asked for his permission to set sail for other ports. Ala-uddin agreed, but there was an important condition attached. 'Thou must bring me a fair Portugall maiden when thou returnest, and then I am pleased.' Lancaster smiled, the Sultan chuckled, and the English ships prepared to depart.
Lancaster sent the Susan to the port of Priaman on Sumatra's southern coast while he, together with the rest of the fleet, sailed into the Straits. Almost immediately he spied a huge Portuguese carrack heading for Malacca and opened fire with the Red Dragons great guns. Six cannonballs were all it took to disable her; her main yard was split in two and crashed onto the deck with a tremendous boom. Completely marooned, the Santo Antonio gave up the fight and surrendered to the English. When Lancaster saw what he had captured he rubbed his eyes in disbelief: she was laden with Indian calicoes and batiks which, though almost valueless in England, were worth a small fortune in the ports of South-East Asia. Here, at last, was something which could readily be exchanged for nutmeg, cloves and pepper.
It took a full six days to unload the Santo Antonio and, by the time all her goods were stowed aboard the English ships, Lancaster realised it was imperative that he found a supply depot, a base for future trading, where the cloth could be stored. Achin, he now knew, was useless for although an important centre for trade it was not the source of the spices he was seeking. He decided to head for the spice port of Bantam on the north-west coast of Java, but thought it diplomatic to first return to Ala-uddin to bid him farewell.
The Sultan congratulated Lancaster on his success against the Portuguese, ‘and jestingly said he had forgotten the most important business that he requested at his hands, which was the fair Portugal maiden he desired him to bring with him at his return. To whom the general [Lancaster] answered that there was none so worthy that merited to be so presented. Therewithall the king smiled and said: if there be anything here in my kingdom may pleasure thee, I would be glad to gratify thy goodwill.'
The request for maidens was not an unusual one among the potentates of the East. To ensure their harems retained an international flavour, they liked to procure youthful damsels from as far afield as possible. Ala-uddin's successor took his harem very seriously indeed and put in a request to London for an English rose or two. This put the Company's puritanical merchants into something of a quandary: if they sent two girls they would be seen to be condoning bigamy and that was unthinkable. There was also the problem of religion. Achin was an Islamic country and there was a theological objection to uniting a good Christian girl in holy matrimony with a Mohammedan. Ironically, the directors' most difficult task — that of finding a suitable virgin — was easily overcome. A London gentleman 'of honourable parentage' offered his daughter without further ado. She was, he explained, 'of excellent parts for musicke, her needle, and good discourse, also very beautiful and personable'. He even wrote a lengthy tract justifying mixed marriages. What the girl in question thought about all this has unfortunately not been recorded but she probably heaved a sigh of relief when King James I declined to sanction the presentation of such an unorthodox gift.
Lancaster was on the brink of departing from Achin when the increasingly eccentric Ala-uddin had an even stranger request. He asked the English captain if he possessed a book of the Psalms of David and, as soon as a copy had been produced, begged Lancaster that he and his court might sing one as a duet. This done, the Sultan wished the English crew his best wishes for the rest of their voyage. His last act was to present Lancaster with a letter addressed to Queen Elizabeth I and written in fine Arabic calligraphy. So magnificent was this calligraphy, in fact, that its eventual translator, Reverend William Bedwell of St Ethelburga's in Bishopgate Street, could scarcely read it. He did eventually produce a draft in English. It was absurdly grandiose and full of hyperbole and Queen Elizabeth was given a string of honorific titles. By the time the letter arrived back in England, she was no longer alive to read it.
Lancaster's fleet sailed from Achin in November 1602. The Ascension, by now fully laden with pepper and spice, set course for England while the rest of the ships headed towards Java, meeting with the Susan on the way. She had fared well in the port of Priaman and her captain had bought a large stock of spices for an extremely competitive price: in Bantam, Lancaster was to find the prices lower still.
Bantam's king was a boy of ten or eleven years. After showing him all the usual courtesies and presenting the customary gifts, Lancaster turned to his Protector to settle the finer points of trade. The English merchants were cordially received and prices for pepper and spice were fixed. A 'factory' or warehouse was established so that the English could unload their wares, and commerce was begun with enthusiasm. A problem of local thieving threatened to sour the buying and selling, but after Lancaster had slaughtered six robbers - a right he had been granted by the Protector - the thieving halted completely.
For five weeks spices were bought and bartered until two hundred and thirty sackfuls had been loaded onto the ships and there was not an inch of space left on board. The local natives were particularly curious to know why the English required such huge quantities of pepper and there was much scratching of heads until it was finally agreed that English houses were so cold that the walls were plastered with crushed pepper in order to produce heat.
One sad episode marred the stay in Bantam. The languid heat was taking its toll on the men who had gone ashore, while those who remained on their vessels, including Captain
John Middleton, 'fell sicke aboord his ship in the road'. Middleton's fever grew steadily worse until Lancaster, himself not well, became alarmed. Paying a visit to his old friend, he watched Middleton pace slowly up and down the deck, growing weaker with every step. That night, the Hector lost its captain and Middleton was buried at Bantam. The crew, though used to the sight of death, wept openly.
It was time to depart for England. Lancaster was aware that if trade between England and the East Indies was to succeed it was essential to establish a permanent base in the East. So, shortly before setting sail, he appointed eight men and three 'factors' or merchants to stay behind in Bantam, leaving in their charge all the goods he had so far been unable to sell.
He had also realised that the price of spices fell sharply the further east he sailed. The prices in Achin were astronomical while in Bantam they were much lower. He was certain that if he had been able to sail even further east, to the Banda Islands, the very source of nutmeg, those prices would dip still further. Before he left Bantam Lancaster therefore instructed the men staying behind to sail eastwards in the forty-ton pinnace left in their charge and buy as much nutmeg, mace and cloves as was possible.
In February 1603, the fleet set sail for England with a thunderous blast from their cannon. The first half of the return voyage proved remarkably uneventful and it was not until the ships reached Madagascar that they were buffeted by their first storm which so smashed their ships 'that they were leakie all the voyage after'.Two weeks later they were hit by a 'very sore storme which continued all the night, and the seas did so beate upon the ships quarter that it shooke all the iron-worke of her rudder'. Huge waves raged around the ships, lashing their weakened hulls and allowing water to seep into the holds. Early on the morning of the fourth the rudder of the Red Dragon 'brake cleane from the sterne of our shippe and presently sunke into the sea'. Unable to steer,'our ship drove up and downe in the sea like a wrecke, which way soever the wind carried her.' Every attempt to make a new rudder failed and, as the rain turned to 'hayle and snow and sleetie cold weather', the men began to abandon all hope of surviving. 'It was a great miserie unto us,' wrote one, 'that pinched us exceeding sore, so that our case was miserable and very desperate.' Even Lancaster felt the end was near. Descending into his cabin, he penned a letter to the Company in London, a letter whose unfailing spirit would become legendary among the sailors of the East India Company. 'I cannot tell where you should looke for me,' he wrote, 'because I live at the devotion of the winds and seas.' And then, sending the letter over to the Hector, he bade her head for England leaving his own ship to her fate. The Hectors captain refused and shadowed the Red Dragon until the storm finally abated. And so, side by side, the ships sailed first to St Helena and then into the English Channel.