Nathaniel's nutmeg

by Giles Milton

  Middleton now found himself in an unenviable position. It was clear that his fleet was no match for the

  Dutch, but if he went ashore and joined forces with the Portuguese there was a slim chance that together they could successfully defend the island. If so, the dividends would be rich indeed for Amboyna's mountainous interior was thickly forested in clove trees. But before he had time to reach a decision he learned that the battle for Amboyna was over. Although the Portuguese bragged that 'they would never yeild up their fort, but fight it out to the last man', they capitulated after a short bombardment and the only death occurred when their commander mysteriously expired. His unhappily married wife later took credit for his death, explaining that she had poisoned him in order to save his honour and reputation.

  With Amboyna lost to the Dutch, Middleton put to sea with not a single clove on board. He was growing in­creasingly concerned by the difficulties of trading in the 'spiceries' and wisely decided that his two vessels, the Red Dragon and the Ascension, should separate and sail for different islands. While the Ascension headed south to the unknown Banda Group, he directed his own ship to the most northerly of the Spice Islands, Ternate and Tidore, which had been loosely under the control of the Portuguese for some decades.

  As the Red Dragon approached these islands, Middleton heard the crack of musket-shot split the air and saw two galleys 'making all the speed possible toward us'. The foremost vessel contained the King of Ternate while behind him, and hot on his heels, were dozens of pirates rowing furiously and firing with their guns. Realising that the king would be an invaluable ally should his life be saved, Middleton immediately ordered the Red Dragons sails to be hauled down and ropes to be thrown over the side. In the nick of time the king was pulled aboard the vessel, but not before his oarsmen had been captured by the pirates and 'put to the sword, saving three men which saved their lives by swimming'.

  Middleton for once had the upper hand. Leading the King down to his private quarters, he handed him one of the letters of trade and friendship drafted by King James and, without even having time to affix the King of Ternate's name to the top, kindly requested him to sign it. Although quaking with fear, the king hesitated for he had only recently signed a secret agreement with the Dutch in which he promised to reserve all his spices for their merchants. But he soon realised that he was in no position to bargain and scrawled his signature on Middleton's treaty, even taking the trouble to write a personal missive to King James explaining how 'we have been informed that Englishmen were of bad disposition, and came not as peaceable merchants, but as thieves and robbers to depose us of our countries. But by the coming of Captain Henry Middleton we have found to the contrary, and we greatlie rejoice.'

  Middleton's luck was not to last. Just a few hours after his triumph a small Dutch fleet stormed the island of Tidore, capturing its sturdy bastion from the Portuguese and threatening to repeat the exercise on neighbouring Ternate.They had been extremely fortunate in the ease of their conquest for 'the Portugals manfully defended their honour against the assailants, till an unfortunate fire (how or whence uncertaine) lighting in their powder blew up a great part of their castle with sixtie or seventie of their men.'

  Middleton watched these events unfold with a growing sense of anger. 'If this frothy nation [the Dutch] may have the trade of the Indies to themselves,' he wrote, 'their pride and insolencie will be intolerable.' The victory of the Dutch gave them control of both the northern and central groups of the Spice Islands, leaving the Banda Islands as the only group of 'spiceries' that still offered the possibility of trade without competition.

  It was to the Bandas that Captain Colthurst had steered the Ascension, ordered by Middleton to 'seeke a lading of nutmegs and mace'. Hoping to trade in peace, he watched in disbelief as a flotilla of Dutch ships followed in his wake. Unfortunately, there are few records of Colthurst's time here — save for a brief account which gives depth readings and soundings of various harbours in the archipelago — and it is necessary to turn to later accounts for a description of these verdant and grandiose islands.

  Dominating them all was Gunung Api, a classically shaped volcanic island with steep sides and a hole at the top. At the beginning of the seventeenth century, it was entering one of the more energetic periods in its history, 'yeelding nothing but cinders, fire and smoake' and frequently erupting with such violence that 'it carried stones of three or four tunnes weight from the one iland into the other.' These boulders would rain down upon neighbouring Neira Island which, although not the largest in the group, had long been the centre for the nutmeg trade. It was to Neira that Captain Garcia had steered his Portuguese carrack in 1529 and, without consulting with the native chieftains, had attempted to construct a castle. Although Garcia was driven away by the local warriors, Neira remained popular with captains and traders on account of its fine natural harbour - once the volcano's caldera — which provided a safe anchorage for far larger vessels than the Ascension.

  Less than half a mile from Neira was the kidney-shaped island of Great Banda, 'strong and almost inaccessible, as [if] it were a castle'. Great Banda s rocky backbone was covered in a mantle of greenery — almost all nutmeg trees — and there was 'scarce a tree on the iland but beareth fruit'. These fruits were jealously guarded by the native inhabitants, an aggressive and warlike people who had built an elaborate system of defensive fortifications around the islands shelving coast.

  The other two islands, Ai and Rozengain, were less than an hour's sailing from Great Banda. Rozengain had little nutmeg and was therefore of no interest to Captain Colthurst, whilst Ai had an extremely treacherous shoreline which deterred all but the most foolhardy of mariners. Nevertheless, it was 'the paradice of all the rest [for] there is not a tree on that iland but the nutmeg, and other

  delicate fruits of superfluitie; and withall, full of pleasant walkes so that the whole countrey seemes a contrived orchard with varieties'.

  The only other island of note was Run, a tiny and outlying atoll whose cliffs and mountain were so tangled with nutmeg trees that they yielded a massive third of a million pounds of the spice every year. But Run, more than two hours from Neira, was the most dangerous of all the Banda Islands for its small harbour was ringed by a sunken reef which had claimed the timbers of many a vessel attempting to put in to port. Such dangers appear to have deterred Colthurst from landing on the island and he returned to Neira where the Dutch commander generously invited the English captain to dinner. According to Dutch records, Colthurst arrived bearing a freshly baked chicken pie, not out of courtesy but because he disliked Dutch food.

  He left the Bandas with a valuable cargo of spice, as well as a friendly letter from a local headman offering King James I a generous gift of nutmeg. It was several years before this headman received a reply, but when he did he was overjoyed. The King, courteous as ever, thanked him for his kind present which, he said, 'we accepted with all kindness.'

  Middleton and Colthurst sailed together for England, following in the wake of the Hector and the Susan. The Susan was destined never to make it home. Caught in a ferocious storm off southern Africa, she sank with the loss of all hands. The Hector almost shared a similar fate; stricken by sickness she was spotted by the Red Dragon 'in lamentable distress' and drifting helplessly in the waters around Table Bay. With just fourteen men left alive, the captain was about to scupper her when Middleton arrived on the scene. He oversaw her repair, waited until her surviving crew had been nursed back to health, and eventually accompanied her back to England, arriving in the spring of 1606.

  The joyous welcome that greeted Middleton and his surviving men on their arrival home was to prove short­lived. For no sooner had his ships' cargo of nutmeg, cloves and pepper been unloaded than a vessel

  arrived in London bearing news of appalling happenings in the harbour at Bantam: ships had been ransacked, cargoes stolen and men indiscriminately slaughtered. At first it was thought that only the Dutch or Portuguese could wreak such terror, but L
ondon's merchants were soon to learn otherwise. The perpetrator of these outrages was none other than the 'gentelman' adventurer Sir Edward Michelborne.

  Sir Edward had made good his promise to have his revenge. Flattering King James with his patrician charm and bad- mouthing the East India Company in the same breath, he persuaded the King to grant him a royal licence for a voyage of discovery to the Far East, a licence that was valid 'notwithstanding any grant or charter to the contrary'.

  The Company were incensed at this sudden loss of their monopoly but not unduly surprised. Unlike his predecessor, King James had failed to grasp the fact that trade with the East Indies could only succeed if it was carried out by a monopoly and with the full backing of the Crown. He was also blind to the problem of the occasional ship sailing into eastern waters, even when that ship was captained by a loose cannon like Sir Edward. It was with the King's sanction and blessing, therefore, that the Tiger, together with a pinnace christened the Tiger's Whelp, set sail from the Isle of Wight on 5 December 1604.The Tiger was a minuscule ship of just two hundred and forty tons and the East India Company directors might reasonably have hoped that she would be lost in the first storm. But Michelborne had a trump up his sleeve. Catching them unawares he announced that his chief pilot was the hugely experienced John Davis, veteran of James Lancaster's expedition and survivor of two difficult voyages to the East Indies. The Company was most surprised to hear this and wondered how Michelborne had managed to seduce Davis on board. In fact, the intrepid navigator had not needed much persuading for he was still angry at having returned from Lancaster's expedition under a cloud. Lancaster himself had complained about Davis, informing the directors that he was 'not a little grieved' that his navigator had been wrong about both the ease with which pepper could be bought in Achin and also the price. Davis was unfairly made a scapegoat and, offered the chance by Sir Edward Michelborne to have his revenge, he promptly signed up to join the Tiger.

  No sooner had they reached Bantam than the mayhem began. Spotting a fully laden vessel on the horizon Michelborne 'fell in fight with her' and she was captured. She was a poor prize, a rice-laden cargo boat, and a dismayed Michelborne recorded that she 'was not suffering the worth of a penny to bee taken from them'. Other ships were stopped and searched in the shallow coastal waters around Bantam until the natives of one vessel, indignant at this blatant act of piracy, set upon the Englishmen and inflicted terrible injuries before leaping overboard and 'swimming away like water spaniels'.

  Undeterred, Sir Edward next waylaid an Indian vessel of eighty tons and ransacked her. Emboldened by his success he now sailed into Bantam harbour where five enormous vessels, all Dutch, were riding at anchor. Chuckling at his own audacity he sent a message to each captain informing them 'that hee would come and ride close to their sides, and bad the prowdest of them all that durst to put a piece of ordnance upon him'. There was a warning attached to his message: if any ship so much as loaded a musket 'hee would either sinke them or sink by their sides.'

  The Dutch were most upset to find themselves at the receiving end of such threats and complained to the King of Bantam that all Englishmen were the same, 'being thieves and disordinate livers'. Yet they steadfastly refused to take up Michelborne's challenge, cowering below deck as Sir Edward tacked up and down the harbour and, 'whereas the Hollanders were wont to swagger and keep great stirre on shore all the time before our being there, they were so quiet that wee could scarcely see one of them.'

  Sir Edward had so far been lucky; he had acted with daring and bravado and no one had called his bluff. But he was shortly to meet his match. As the ship drifted in calm waters off the Malay Peninsula, a cry was suddenly raised from the look-out. A mysterious ship was approaching, a huge junk, whose decks were lined with more than eighty men. They were strange-looking fellows: short, squat, and with an almost total lack of expression on their faces. Sir Edward despatched a heavily armed boat to discover if these people were friend or foe and, after a brief exchange in which the English learned that the vessel was 'a junke of the Japons', they were invited on board and shown around. When they enquired of the Japanese as to their line of business the men made no bones about their trade. The junk, like the Tiger, was a pirate ship and the men were proud of her devastating progress through the waters of South-East Asia. She had pillaged the coasts of China and

  Cambodia, plundered half a dozen ships off Borneo, and was now heading back to Japan laden with spoils.

  When the English party were safely back on the Tiger, Sir Edward weighed up his options. Trusting to his previous good fortune, he decided to ransack the junk and, to this end, sent a second band of Englishmen on board to stake her out. Although it was clear to the Japanese that Michelborne's buccaneering sailors were assessing the strengths and weaknesses of the vessel, they welcomed the English with open arms and allowed them free access to the ship's hold. They even pointed to the choicest items on board, astonishing the crew of the Tiger who had never met with such an odd race of men. 'They were most of them too gallant a habit for sailors,' wrote one, 'and such an equalitie of behaviour among them that they all seemed fellows.' When they asked to visit the English vessel all agreed that it would be impolite to refuse.

  Here Michelborne's inexperience told for the first time. He was unaware that the Japanese had the reputation in the Indies for being a 'people so desperate and daring that they are feared in all places' and was ignorant of the fact that all eastern ports demanded that any Japanese sailor coming ashore must first be disarmed. Davis, too, was 'beguiled by their humble semblance'. Not only was he of the opinion that disarming them was unnecessary, he offered them the run of the ship and let them freely fraternise with the crew. As more and more Japanese clambered aboard, beakers were raised and the two crews joked and chatted among themselves.

  In a flash everything changed: unbeknown to the English, the Japanese had, in the words of Michelborne, 'resolved with themselves either to gaine my shippe or to lose their lives'. The smiles vanished, the laughter died and the Japanese suddenly transformed themselves into brutal 'rogues' who stabbed and slashed at their English adversaries. The crew of the Tiger had never faced such hostility and scarcely had a chance to resist before the deck was swarming with Japanese wielding long swords and hacking men to pieces. Soon they reached the gun room where they found Davis desperately loading muskets. 'They pulled [him] into the cabbin and giving him sixe or seven mortall wounds, they thrust him out of the cabbin.' He stumbled on deck but the sword wounds had severed one of his arteries and he bled to death. Others, too, were in their final death throes and it seemed inevitable that the Tiger would shortly be lost.

  It was Michelborne who saved the day. Thrusting pikes into the hands of his best fighters he launched a last-ditch attack on the Japanese soldiers 'and killed three or four of their leaders'. This disheartened the Japanese who slowly found themselves at a disadvantage. Armed with knives and swords, they were unable to compete with Michelborne's pikemen and found themselves driven down the deck until they stood en masse by the entrance to the cabin. Sensing their predicament, they let out a terrific scream and dashed headlong into the heart of the ship.

  The English were at a loss as to know how to evict them. Not one man volunteered to follow them into the cabin for to do so would be to court certain death. It was equally hopeless to send a large group down. The passageway was low and narrow and the men would end up wounding themselves rather than the Japanese. Eventually, a bright spark on board had a simple but devastating solution. Two thirty-two-pound demi-culverins were loaded with 'crosse-barres, bullets, and case-shot' and fired at point-blank range into the most exposed side of the cabin. There was a deafening crash as the shrapnel tore through the woodwork and 'violently marred therewith boords and splinters'. A terrible shriek followed, a cry of agony, and then there was silence. When the smoke cleared and the dust settled, the cabin was entered and it was found that only one of the twenty-two Japanese had survived. 'Their legs, armes and bodies
were so torne, as it was strange to see how the shot had massacred them.'

  It was now time for Michelborne to have his revenge. Training every last cannon on the Japanese junk, he fired shot after shot into her sides until the men on board begged for mercy. When this was refused they vowed to go down fighting and the battle raged until all resistance was quelled and the junk fell silent. Only one Japanese attempted to surrender. Diving into the water he swam across to the Tiger and was hauled aboard. When quizzed by Sir Edward as to the motive for the attack he 'told us that they meant to take our shippe and to cut all our throates'. Having said this, and terrified by the crowd of hostile onlookers, he told Michelborne that his one desire was 'that hee might be cut in pieces'. Michelborne preferred a less bloody method of execution and ordered the man to be strung up at the yardarm. This sentence was duly carried out but the rope snapped and the man dropped into the sea. No one could be bothered to haul him in and as the coast was not far away it was presumed that he escaped with his life.

  The English crew were by now weary of their piratical adventure and elected to return home, eventually sailing back into Portsmouth in the summer of 1606. Michelborne was totally discredited by his conduct and retired in disgrace, but far more serious than the damage to his own career was the damage he had done to the reputation of English shipping. The Dutch in particular seized on his acts of piracy and used them to blacken the name of England among the native princes of the East. The English traders living in Bantam were in particular peril, for the King of Bantam was furious about what had happened. So damaging was Michelborne s voyage, in fact, that the Company sent a protest to the Lords of the Privy Council calling upon them to seize all the goods that Sir Edward had pillaged and reminding them that 'Sir Edward Michelborne has taken and spoiled some of our friends there, whereby not only the utter overthrow of the whole trade is much endangered, but also the safety of our men and goods.'