Nathaniel's nutmeg

by Giles Milton

  On 11 September 1603, some two years and seven months after they had set sail from the Thames, the vessels finally anchored off the Downs, 'for which thanked be Almightie God, who hath delivered us from infinite perils and dangers in this long and tedious navigation'.

  Compared to previous expeditions, this one had been an unqualified success. Wherever the Portuguese had been encountered in the Indian Ocean they had been of little threat — indeed the English were proving remarkably adept at disabling their unwieldy carracks. In the spice port of Bantam, Lancaster had found few difficulties in acquiring a full lading of spice and had even been allowed to build a small warehouse close to the harbour and leave behind a permanent staff. Even more impressive was the fact that all five of his ships had returned safely and more than a million pounds of spices had been successfully brought into the kingdom. But Lancaster had his misgivings. He had lost almost half his men, including his friends John Middleton and William Brund, and had failed to reach the islands far to the east of Bantam. As he kneeled before the King and received his knighthood, Sir James could only hope that the men he left behind - those eight crew and three merchants — would have the courage to sail to the Banda Islands in their tiny pinnace.

  chapter four

  In the Paws of the Lion

  The English traders left in Bantam watched the departure of Lancaster's fleet with deep misgivings.

  They had no idea when they might see their next English vessel but it was certain to be at least two years. In the meantime they were in a wholly unfamiliar environ­ment, living in this fly-blown port on sufferance of the boy-king's Protector and terrified that they would soon succumb to the same sickness that had killed so many of their colleagues.

  Lancaster had only reinforced their sense of vulner­ability when he wrote down the hierachy of command to be adhered to if and when they died. William Starkey was put in overall charge with Thomas Morgan as his deputy, but 'if it please God to lay his hand upon you and take you out of this world' then Edmund Scott was to take control.

  In the event such caution proved all too necessary. Starkey died in June 1603, having already outlived Morgan by two months. Only Edmund Scott survived to see the arrival of the East India Company's second expedition and, to his evident relief, was allowed to join the fleet when it headed back to England.

  Lancaster showed a similar concern for the moral well-being of his men. Bantam was infamous in the East for its loose women and lax morals and an air of profligacy hung over the town like the plague of typhoid that frequently descended on its inhabitants. He ordered Starkey that 'you meet together in the morninges and eveninges in prayer. God, whom ye serve, shall the better bless you in all your affairs.' He also begged them to 'agree together lovingly, like sober men [and] govern yourselves so that there be no brabbles among you for any cause'.

  These men, who for so long had complained about the strict daily routine on board ship, now found themselves comforted by an ordered existence. The day began at dawn with William Starkey offering prayers of thanksgiving, and this was followed by a light breakfast. The main meal was at midday at which all the factors would sit together at a long table, seated in strict accordance with his position. The rice, mutton and tropical fruit which they ate, all of which was bartered in Bantam's souks, was washed down with locally distilled arak, a fiery spirit that was glugged in considerable quantity by these drink-hardened men. One captain who arrived in Bantam a few years later professed himself horrified at the drunken behaviour of the factors. 'If any be found by excessive drinking or otherwise like to prove a scandal to our nation,' he said, 'use first sharp reprehensions, and if that work not reformation then by the first ship send him home with a writing showing the reasons thereof.'

  Once the English were familiar with life in Bantam they prepared to carry out Lancaster's instructions. Three of the factors were to remain in the city and buy pepper in preparation for the Company's second voyage. The rest of the men were to sail to the remote Banda Islands under the command of Master Keche and acquire as much spice as was available. Lancaster was most specific in his request

  for nutmeg: 'Have you a great care to receive such as be good,' he told them, 'for the smallest and rotten nutmegs be worth nothing at home.' Such a warning was born from experience. It had long been the custom of wily merchants to fill their sacks with old and rotten spices, as well as dust and twigs, in order to increase the weight and swell their profits.

  The little pinnace hoisted its sails soon after the English fleet had departed from Bantam and gingerly headed east into uncharted waters. But no sooner had it come within sight of the 'spiceries' than contrary winds began to blow and the ship drifted off course. What happened next remains unclear for the report written by the men has been lost and only a couple of letters survive. Struck by

  'contrarietie of wynde', the ship spent two months 'beating up and down in the seas' in a desperate attempt to reach the outlying Banda Islands. This proved wholly unsuccessful until a tremendous storm washed the boat up on Run's remote shores. The hardy English sailors were given a friendly welcome by the islanders who thought them too few to be of any threat. They were soon busily trading nutmeg with these storm-tossed sailors and even allowed them to construct a flimsy bamboo and thatch warehouse on the island's northern coastline.

  Lancaster's fleet arrived back to a London steeped in gloom. The capital was in the grip of the plague and the streets and alleys around the Company's house in Philpot Lane were silent but for the rattle of tumbrels and barrows bearing corpses out of the city. The plague had not spared the Company directors: two had already succumbed to the disease while others had fled London for the safety of the countryside.

  Hearing that the first of Lancaster's ships had arrived in Plymouth the Company directors bestirred themselves. Bestowing the princely sum of five pounds to the local courier 'for his pains in riding hither

  with the first report of the coming of the Ascension', they sent strict orders back to Plymouth that the ship's cargo was not to be touched until she was safely moored in the Thames. Even then they could not be too careful; the six porters charged with unloading the ship were instructed to wear pocketless

  (Opposite) James Lancaster returned to a London stricken with the plague. To the voyage-hardened crew, death was treated with a cavalier contempt. Walker died laughing,' reads one account. 'Woodes and I staked

  two pieces-of-eight on his body; and I won

  .'

  suits, just in case they should feel the urge to filch some spice.

  The Ascension had made speedy progress back to England and arrived in advance of the other ships. Lancaster, together with the rest of the fleet, sailed up the Thames in September 1603, by which time almost 38,000 Londoners had fallen victim to the plague. There were none of the cheering crowds that had seen them off two- and-a-half years previously. The wharves lay silent and the dockyards were closed for Londoners were too scared to venture out of doors. The playwright Thomas Dekker summed up the sombre mood that hung over the city in his ironically titled The Wonderfull Yeare:

  No musick now is heard but bells,

  And all their tunes are sick mens knells;

  And every stroake the bell does toll,

  Up to heaven it windes a soule.

  Even the physicians had fled for their lives, leaving only a handful of brave practitioners to sell their 'pomanders and what not' and reap enormous profits from their nutmeg potions: 'I confesse they are costly,' explained one doctor to his ailing client, 'but cheape medicines are as dear as death.'

  To the voyage-hardened crew, death had become so commonplace that it was treated with a cavalier contempt. 'Walker died laughing,' reads one journal. 'Woodes and I staked two pieces-of-eight on his body, and after a long play, I won.' But one death caused many a sailor to shed tears: just a few months earlier Queen Elizabeth I, the last of the great Tudor monarchs, had passed away at her palace in Richmond. There was now a new ruler on the throne — Elizabeth's ha
ughty Scottish cousin King James - who showed far less sympathy than his predecessor to the likes of the common burghers who formed the backbone of the East India Company.

  Despite the general gloom, Lancaster was given an enthusiastic reception on his return and duly received his knighthood from the King. But the pressing problem facing the merchants was how, in the midst of the worst plague London could remember, to dispose of more than a million pounds in weight of pepper. Cash was desperately needed to pay off the sailors who had survived the voyage, the subscribers were anxiously clamouring for money, and preparations for the second voyage were unthinkable until the present stock had been sold.

  Unfortunately, the financial institutions of the city had been paralysed by the plague for those dealers who were still alive had also fled to the country. Worse still, the King himself had recently acquired a huge quantity of pepper — probably the contents of a captured Portuguese carrack — and was keen to dispose of it as quickly as possible. Citing his kingly prerogative, and invoking a royal edict, he declared that the merchant adventurers could not sell a single peppercorn until he had first disposed of his own stock.

  The Company was in dire straits and its future hung on a thread. It seemed ironic to many that it was so woefully short of funds as to threaten its survival at the very moment when the first voyage had ended in such triumph. A single event saved the day. When Queen Elizabeth had originally granted the merchants their charter she had specified that it was on the understanding that a trading expedition should be sent to the 'spiceries' annually. Now, sensing the merchants' vulnerability, the Privy Council threatened to hand over the Company's trading rights to another individual unless a second expedition set sail immediately.

  No names were mentioned but it was clear whom they had in mind: Sir Edward Michelborne, whose name had been so humiliatingly deleted from the Company's lists, had nursed his grievances for long enough. He now wanted revenge.

  The Company was shocked by the possibility of losing their privileges and acted with uncharacteristic decision, despatching a beadle to all the city merchants to collect subscriptions for a second voyage. The merchants were understandably reluctant to finance a new voyage before they had reaped the profits of the old and a mere £11,000 was subscribed. It was therefore decided that everyone who had invested £250 in the first voyage was obliged to subscribe a further £200 for the second. It was not a popular move but it saved the Company in its hour of need and within a few months preparations were under way for a second voyage.

  Lancaster had no intention of commanding this new expedition: wealthy, knighted and understandably reluctant to tempt fate by sailing to the East Indies for a third time, he graciously accepted the desk-bound post of director. He was placed in charge of planning the new expedition and his influence is everywhere apparent: although the ships were to call at Bantam in order to rendezvous with the English factors, their mission was to sail east to the 'Molloccos', or Spice Islands, which Lancaster himself had failed to reach. Here, the ships were to buy the most valuable of the spices, nutmeg and cloves, and leave factors behind in anticipation of the Company's third voyage. Lancaster's instructions once again placed special emphasis on the crews' spiritual well-being and asked that concern be shown for the men he had left behind, particularly chief factor William Starkey who was to be 'provided for and well placed in such ship as he shall be shipped as a man that we hold in good regard and to be respected accordingly'. He did not know that Starkey was long since dead.

  The man charged with leading this second expedition was Henry Middleton who had sailed under Lancaster's command on the first venture and proved himself to be both capable and trustworthy. Energetic and resolute, he was always respected by his subordinates and his leadership never came under fire, even when he guided his fleet through dangerous and uncharted seas. Although given to impetuosity and hot-headedness, he dealt with both the Dutch and Portuguese, as well as the native chieftains, with considerable diplomacy.

  With no shortage of funds to finance the voyage it was decided to send four ships to the East — the Hector, Ascension and Susan, with the trusty Red Dragon once again serving as flagship. Following Lancaster's instructions to the letter, Middleton headed directly to Bantam where he found the few remaining Englishmen in a desperate plight after receiving much harsh treatment from the local traders. The arrival of his ships on 22 December 1604 was the best Christmas present these men could have asked for. 'Towards evening we descried our ships coming into the road, to all our extreaordinary great joy.' So wrote Edmund Scott, by now the most senior Englishman still alive in the city. 'But when we came aboard of our admiral, and saw their great weakness, also hearing the weakness of the other three ships, it grieved us much.'

  Middleton went straight to business on his arrival at the port. Presenting the boy-king with a hotchpotch of presents — including two gilt cups, a spoon and six muskets - he struck a deal, loaded the Hector and Susan with pepper, and sent them directly back to England. His last task before bidding them farewell won him widespread popularity from his crew Having listened to endless complaints about the tiresome habits of Master Surfflict, the preacher on the Red Dragon, Middleton decided to despatch him back to England. He had proved completely useless on the outward journey and few tears were shed when he dropped dead on the return.

  More deaths were soon to follow. Middleton continued eastwards to the Spice Islands as instructed but no sooner had he left Bantam than his ship was afflicted by the 'blody flux' — a life-threatening strain of dysentery. With the list of casualties growing by the day, the ship's journal becomes little more than a roll-call for the dead: 'The seventeenth day died of the flux William Lewed, John Jenkens, and Samuel Porter ... the twentieth dyed Henry Stiles our master carpenter, and James Varnam, and John Iberson, all of the fluxe. The twenty-second day died of the fluxe James Hope; the twenty-fourth dyed John Leay and Robert Whitthers.' The atmosphere on board was sombre indeed and still the men kept dying. Three more succumbed on the following day, then another two, and by the time the ships sighted land another five men had died of the 'flux'. It was with considerable relief that the ships at last arrived at Amboyna, a clove-fringed island that lay at the very heart of the 'spiceries'.

  Middleton stepped ashore to greet the local king and entreat him for a trading deal but was promptly informed that all trade was forbidden without prior permission of the Portuguese garrison stationed on the island. The English commander now showed his colours as an accomplished diplomat. Aware; that the Portuguese were unlikely to part with their cloves, especially to their old adversaries the English, he sent a letter to their captain informing him that there was at last peace between the two nations and that he 'desired that the like might be between us, for that our comming was to seeke trade with them'. What he said was true: King James I and King Philip III had indeed signed a peace treaty but Middleton can hardly have been aware of this for it had been agreed more than five months after he left England.

  The news had the desired effect and the Portuguese commander, safely ensconced in the stout bastion that guarded Amboyna's natural harbour, sent word of his agree­ment to a deal. But before the two men even had the chance to shake hands, they learned that there was trouble on the horizon. In the far distance, and fast disappearing into the twilight, a formidable fleet of vessels could be seen approaching the island. To Middleton's dismay, these were neither Portuguese nor English: this veritable armada was flying the Dutch colours from its flagship.

  When the sun rose the following day there were no less than nine ships in the offing, together with an auxiliary fleet of pinnaces and sloops. These slowly sailed into the harbour and 'came to an anker within a musket shot of the fort'. The Portuguese commander immediately ingratiated himself with his Dutch counterpart, asking him 'wherefore they came thither' and stating that 'if they came in friendshippe they should be welcome'. But the Dutch had certainly not come in friendship and their general 'made answer that his comming thither was
to have that castel from them; and willed them to deliver him the keyes [which,] if they refused to do, he willed them to provide for themselves to defend it, for he was minded to have it before he departed'.