by Giles Milton
The Moghul officials and the Portuguese now redoubled their efforts to revoke the Emperor's licence. They proved successful for hardly had Jehangir's order reached Surat than it was inexplicably countermanded. There was more bad news in store for Hawkins and Finch. The Ascension 'was cast away' off Gujarat, presumably after striking a reef and, although many of the crew were saved, the 'disorder and riot committed by some of them' caused Finch untold trouble, especially when a certain Thomas Tucker butchered a cow in the street - 'a slaughter more than murder in India'.
Hawkins, meanwhile, was trying to mend his fences with the emperor, all the while making observations about Jehangir's unpredictable character. Most afternoons he accompanied him to lion and elephant fights which were of a scale and brutality akin to those of imperial Rome. Relishing the quantities of blood spilt, Jehangir took increasing delight in gladiatorial contests between man and beast, as Hawkins relates in a particularly gruesome anecdote.
A Pathan warrior from the frontier approached one of the Emperor's sons for a job but, when asked what pay he expected, said he would not work for less than 1,000 rupees a day. The prince was taken aback and asked how he could justify asking for such a huge salary. 'Make trial with me with all sorts of weapons,' he said, 'and if I do not perform as much as I speak, then let me die for it.'
Later that evening, the prince went to visit his drunken father and repeated this amusing story. The Emperor immediately commanded that the Pathan be brought before him and also asked for the strongest and most savage lion he possessed to be led into the palace. When asked by the emperor why the Pathan thought he was worth such a great salary, the man repeated his earlier challenge. Jehangir, bleary-eyed from drink and by now slurring his words said, 'That I will ... go wrestle and buffet with this lion.'
The Pathan protested, saying that to fight a lion without a weapon was no test of strength. But Jehangir was in no mood to change his mind. 'The King,' writes Hawkins, 'not regarding his speech, commanded him to buckle with the lion, who did so, wrestling and buffeting ... a pretty while: and then the lion being loose from his keepers, but not from his chaines, got the poore man within his clawes, and tore his body in many parts: and with his pawes tore the one halfe of his face, so that the valiant man was killed by this wilde beast. 'The Emperor so enjoyed the spectacle that he called for ten of his horsemen to wrestle with the lion, three of whom lost their lives.
He was no less unpredictable with his ministers. One of Hawkins' friends at court, the Chief of the King's Wardrobe, had the misfortune to smash one of Jehangir's favourite Chinese dishes. Knowing the Emperor would be furious if he discovered the accident, he sent a servant to travel over the whole of China to find a replacement. The man searched in vain. Two years after the accident — and with still no sign of the servant — the Emperor asked the Chief of the King's Wardrobe for the dish and was told it was broken. 'Now when the king heard [this] he was in a great rage, commanding him to be brought before him and to be beaten by two men, with two great whips made of cords: and after he had received one hundred and twenty of these lashes, he commanded his porters, who he appointed for that purpose, to beate him with their small cudgels till a great many of them were broken. At least twenty men were beating him, till the poore man was thought to be dead, and then he was hauled out by the heels and commanded to prison.'
The following morning the Emperor demanded to know whether the man was still alive; when told that, yes, the man had survived the ordeal, he ordered that he spend the rest of his days in prison. At this point Jehangir's son intervened, secured the poor man's release and nursed him back to health. But still the Emperor was angry. Summoning the trembling fellow into his presence once again, he dismissed him from his court and told him 'never to come again before him until he had found such a like dish, and that he travel through China to seek it'. The man voyaged the length and breadth of the country for fourteen months but had no success in finding a copy. At length he discovered that a similar dish was owned by the King of Persia who sent it to him out of pity
Hawkins eventually tired of the constant bloodshed and debauchery and grew fearful that the capricious Emperor would turn against him. One minute he was in favour, the next minute he was despised: 'Thus', he writes, 'was I tossed and tumbled in the kind of a rich merchant, venturing all he had in one bottom and, by casualtie of storms or pirates, lost it all at once.' When he was told his allowance had been annulled Hawkins knew it was time to pack his bags. He headed back to Surat with Mrs Hawkins and found himself in luck. A new English fleet under the command of the recently knighted Sir Henry Middleton had just arrived from Arabia and was presently at anchor off the bar at Surat.
Hawkins sailed home a disappointed man. He had been sent to India with high hopes of striking a deal with the emperor but, after almost three years of constant petitioning, he had left the court empty-handed. On a personal level, the mission had also failed. Jealous of Hawkins' influence over the Emperor, his fellow sailors did their utmost to undermine his reputation on their return. Purporting to be scandalised by his drunkenness, they told the East India Company directors that his debauchery at court had led to his disgrace. It was an unlikely charge but it stuck. In any case, Hawkins was in no position to defend himself for he fell sick on the long journey home and died shortly before arriving in England. The loyal Mrs Hawkins was distraught. Unable to live on her own she sold a very valuable diamond, married a factor called Gabriel Towerson, an experienced East India trader, and accompanied him back to the East.
Chapter Five
'Admiral, We Are Betrayed!'
To the handful of observers gathered on Dover's cliffs there had rarely been a more magnificent sight.
A flotilla of ships was flying up the Channel, the wind filling their sails and their pennants streaming behind them. But these were not English vessels, nor were there any English sailors on board. The fleet was commanded by a Dutchman, Jacob van Neck, who was about to bring untold wealth to his mercantile masters in Amsterdam.
Rarely would expeditions pass as smoothly as Jacob van Neck's, which returned to Holland in the summer of 1599. He sailed to the East without any untoward incident and successfully bought an enormous quantity of spices in Bantam before heading for home. On later voyages he would find himself accused of sodomy, would lose his hand in a gun battle and eat a poisonous fruit which temporarily afflicted him with 'madnesse, seeing angels, devils, serpents, all things and nothing'. But on this occasion he was spared such troubles and his return was a cause for joyous celebration, for 'as long as Holland has been Holland there have never arrived ships as richly laden as these.' Indeed they were: nearly a million pounds in weight of pepper and cloves as well as half a ship-load of nutmeg, mace and cinnamon. The commander and his men were feted as heroes: led by a band of trumpeters they were paraded in triumph through the streets of Amsterdam while the city's church bells rang out in celebration. The merchants presented van Neck with a glittering golden beaker (a generosity somewhat marred by the discovery that it was only gold-plated) and the crew were given as much wine as they could drink.
The success of the voyage was due to van Neck's skill in dealing with the natives in Bantam. Three years previously the choleric Cornelis Houtman had battered the town with his formidable firepower, slaughtered hundreds of the local population, and even had the audacity to train his largest cannon on the King's palace. Van Neck was a shrewd enough operator to realise that any redress for Houtman's behaviour would be welcomed. Not only did he agree to the King's prices, he boldly suggested that he pay over the odds for the goods in order to cement their new-found relationship. 'Some may think', he wrote in his journal, ‘that we are a bit too liberal with the money of our masters. But if they will look at it soberly, they will have to agree that, at places where our nation previously left as an enemy, a certain amount of goodwill is not misplaced.' He was aided in his task of mending fences by Bantam's merchants who had recently captured three Portuguese vessels, stripped them of
everything of value, and set fire to them. Aware that the Portuguese were sure to avenge this wanton act of piracy, the Bantamese were desperately in need of a powerful ally.
A brisk trade followed van Neck's arrival and within four weeks the three ships under his direct command were filled with spices. His only concern was what had happened to the second squadron of his fleet, not sighted since Madagascar. But as New Year's Eve approached and van Neck planned festivities for his crew, these other ships, commanded by the splendidly named Vice Admiral Wybrand van Warwyck and the Arctic explorer Jacob van Heemskerck, sailed into view. 'They were joyously received,' records the ship's journal, 'and made welcome.'
None was happier than Jacob van Heemskerck who, just two years earlier, had been stranded in the Arctic when his search for the fabled North-East Passage was brought to an icy halt. Now, basking in the tropical heat of Bantam, Heemskerck found himself in considerably more genial surroundings. Back among old friends, he threw himself into the festivities. His own voyage had been better than many; stumbling across a paradisal island in the middle of the Indian Ocean — which he named Mauritius — his men stuffed their bellies with the easy-to-catch wildlife and amused themselves by lounging on the beaches and riding four-abreast on giant tortoises. Realising that Mauritius could be a valuable port of call for Dutch ships Heemskerck put a rooster and some hens ashore and planted orange and lemon seeds, invoking 'the Almighty God's blessing that He may lend His power to make them multiply and grow for the benefit of those who will visit the island after us'.
Jacob van Neck's frantic buying had left the port of Bantam bereft of spices. Before sailing for home he suggested that the rest of the fleet sail east to the Spice Islands where it was certain they would be able to procure a full cargo of nutmeg and mace. This they duly did: Warwyck headed for the northernmost island of Ternate where he fired so many rounds of ammunition in celebration of his safe arrival that the very island was said to quake. Heemskerck, meanwhile, had sailed into even remoter seas. Fearless and daring, he had his eye on the Banda Islands - as yet unvisited by either the Dutch or English — and sailed eastwards with a bravado that was not always appreciated by his on-board merchants. When one of their number suggested that the captain should be more careful with his ships, Heemskerck exploded: 'When we risk our lives,' he said, 'the Lords of the Company may damn well risk their ships!'
He also had to risk a monster, a creature of 'devillish possession' which was said to live in the Banda Islands and prey on passing ships. Fortunately his Indian pilot knew just the method of dealing with such monsters: 'With a terrible ghastly countenance [he] thrust forward the boat- hook' as if to kill the devil. This did the trick, the monster remained out of sight and in mid-March, 1599, Heemskerck dropped anchor at Great Banda and petitioned the local chieftain for trade. The Bandanese were less than happy to see this band of Dutchmen arrive at their shores. Almost ninety years of contact with the Portuguese had taught them to treat all foreigners with mistrust and the arrival of the Dutch seemed to portend some new and menacing threat. Scarcely had Heemskerck's vessels dropped anchor in the huge natural harbour at Neira than Gunung Api, a volcano which had lain dormant for centuries, suddenly burst into life and sent a spectacular display of fireworks into the tropical sky. 'The hill cast forth such hideous flames, such store of cinders, and huge streames that it destroyed, burnt, and broke downe all the thicke woods and mightie trees, overwhelming them as it were her owne vomiting so that a greene leafe could not be seene in all that part of the iland.'The locals were reminded of a prophecy, told them five years earlier by a Muslim holy man, that an army of white strangers would shortly arrive at the islands and take them by force. Since the Dutch ships were heavily armed, and Heemskerck appeared to take a keen interest in the local feuding, it was widely agreed that this was that white army.
After the presentation of lavish gifts, and repeated assurances from Heemskerck that he was a sworn enemy of the Portuguese, his men were allowed to land on Great Banda and barter their knives and mirrors for nutmeg and mace. The Dutchmen spent almost a month buying spices and were allowed to trade peacefully and undisturbed, though not without quarrels: A man needs seven eyes,' recorded Heemskerck, 'if he does not want to be cheated. These people are so crooked and brazen that it is almost unbelievable.' Nevertheless, the prices they paid for nutmeg were laughably low (less than one English penny for ten pounds of nutmeg) and their cargo would increase many thousand-fold in value by the time they arrived back in Holland.
A house was rented on Great Banda and soon local boats began arriving from the neighbouring island of Neira. Trading was temporarily halted when the Banda Islands were plunged into war as rival chieftains
embarked on a series of ambitious head-hunting expeditions. The menfolk of Neira, together with their allies on nearby Ai Island, went on the rampage, killing their enemies and adorning their boats with the bloody trophies of battle. They even chopped off women's heads, contrary to tradition, although they had the good grace to 'burie these heads in cotton clothes'. On their return, 'with their swords yet bloody, [they] made glorious muster of themselves four or five days together.'
Such localised wars were a recurring feature in the Banda Islands and the Dutch were soon to exploit them to devastating effect. But for the moment Heemskerck was happy to watch from the sidelines and gather intelligence for future expeditions. When he finally set sail on his homeward journey he left behind a party of twenty-two Dutchmen and instructed them to stockpile nutmeg in preparation for the next Dutch fleet. His parting conversation with the headman of Great Banda provoked an unusual request: drawing Heemskerck to one side the headman confessed to an abiding passion for horology and begged the Dutch commander to return to the island with a large grandfather clock, adding the proviso that any representation of man or beast must be removed since it would cause offence to his Muslim islanders. Heemskerck agreed, but as there is no further mention of the clock, the request seems to have been conveniently forgotten.
The Dutch captain finally arrived back in Amsterdam in the spring of 1600 and was accorded a welcome no less rapturous than had been given to van Neck. When his nutmeg was finally unloaded into the city's warehouses, 'the air of the whole neighbourhood was sweetened by their savoury smell.'
'But before the returne of any of these ships, in the yeere 1599, the Dutch set forth another fleet.' Much to the chagrin of Amsterdam s merchants, this new expedition had been despatched by their trading rivals in Rotterdam and Zeeland who had long been keen to involve themselves in the spice trade. Amsterdam responded by toughening its stance, informing its commanders to deal harshly with any competitors. 'You know as well as we do what losses it would cause us if the Zeeland ships were to arrive before ours are fully loaded, Therefore Buy, Buy everything you can lay your hands on, and load it as quickly as possible. Even if you have no room for it, keep on buying and bind it to yourselves for future delivery.'
Their advice came too late. With more and more ships heading for the 'spiceries', and with prices rising by the month, the merchants of Amsterdam petitioned their delegates in the States General, the body that represented all the provinces of the United Netherlands, for a total and exclusive monopoly on the spice trade. 'For many and varied reasons,' they wrote, 'it is advisable that this commerce be conducted by one administration.'
It was an outrageous demand and it was soon thrown out. Yet the man who led the opposition, Johan van Oldebarnvelt, who as Advocate or Attorney-General of Holland was the most powerful man in the land, realised that some sort of monopoly was essential if the spice trade was to flourish. He rejected Amsterdam's proposal, insisting instead that small-time investors from the entire country should be included 'so that these men can discuss ways and means whereby this aforementioned navigation and trade shall be secured for many years to come'. It was not a popular move and was bitterly opposed by the Amsterdam merchants, but on the evening of 20 March 1602, an agreement was struck and the Dutch East India Company o
fficially came into being. Known as the VOC (Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie), or more colloquially as the Seventeen after its seventeen-strong council, it was given a total monopoly over the spice trade for a period of twenty-one years. It was to prove a formidable rival to its English counterpart.
The Seventeen wasted no time in sending their first fleet to the East Indies. Just eleven days after putting their signatures to the charter, they despatched three ships under the robust command of Sebald de Weert whilst the rest of the fleet, under Wybrand van Warwyck, left the Texel some two months later. The men were ordered to establish trading links with scores of countries and princedoms including Java, Sumatra, Ceylon and the 'spiceries'. As if that was not enough, van Warwyck was also instructed to sail to China and open trading bases up and down the coast. Military action was both permitted and expected: 'attack the Spanish and Portuguese wherever you find them,' read the instructions, and it was not long before the Dutch ships found themselves embroiled in local hostilities. No sooner had Sebald de Weert arrived at Ceylon than the maharajah 'protested much his hatred to the Portugall and began to explore the possibilities of a joint assault on their castles'. De Weert struck up an instant rapport with this candid but jovial ruler who, he learned, had been brought up by the Portuguese, converted to Christianity and taken the name Dom Joao. Now, his friendship had turned sour and he was planning his revenge, suggesting to de Weert that if the Dutch vessels blockade the islands principal port, he would attack the Portuguese castle with his land forces. They could then repeat this exercise up and down the coastline until the Portuguese had been decisively trounced. In return, he promised to turn over the Portuguese battlements to the Dutch and 'reserve his merchandising for them'. This was too good an offer to turn down and de Weert whole-heartedly embraced the project.The good humour was not to last. De Weert's crew were exhausted after their long journey and although there was plenty of fresh fruit on the island, the humid climate made them jumpy and irritable. 'They were disquieted with flies and gnats which would not suffer them to sleepe.' Even more annoying were the natives 'who made fire and smoake all the night'. But what really angered the Dutch crew was the fact that they were still living off the by now putrid salt beef loaded onto the ships in Holland. 'The king entertained them well,' records one journal, 'but their religion prohibiting to eat beefs and buffals - whereof they had great plenty - they would not sell any to the Hollanders.' This was all the more galling since the surrounding fields and meadows, and even the streets, were crowded with plump cattle and buffalo. To the Singhalese, these were holy animals who harboured the souls of their deceased relatives. But the Dutch, sick of gnawing rancid gristle, saw juicy steaks in every cow that passed. De Weert listened politely as Dom Joao explained why he could not sell any cattle but privately he scoffed at the suggestion of sacred cows and allowed his 'unruely' men to go on the rampage, butchering cows and roasting the meat over camp-fires.