Nathaniel's nutmeg

by Giles Milton

  At last they came to Sana'a, 'a citie somewhat bigger than Bristol,' where their fur gowns were confiscated and they were forced to march barefoot through the city like common criminals. Middleton was in no mood for diplomacy. Dragged by 'two great men' to an audience with the Pasha he gave vent to his fury, accusing Rejib Aga of duplicity, falsehood and murder. The Pasha listened 'with frowning and angry countenance', blamed Sir Henry for causing him numerous problems, then led the Englishmen to a common prison where they were once again 'clapt in waightie irons'.

  They had spent almost a month in jail when the Pasha suddenly called Sir Henry into his presence and told him that all the men would be released without delay and were free to return to Mocha. What induced the Pasha's sudden clemency is far from clear but it was rumoured that an influential merchant from Cairo, to whom the Pasha was indebted, had intervened on behalf of the Englishmen. Their release came just in time, for 'many of our people in the meane while fell sicke and weake through griefe, cold, naughtie aire, bad diet, evill lodging, and waightie irons.'

  The chameleon-like Pasha now transformed himself into a kindly and avuncular figure, providing the men with a large mansion, suggesting a tour of the city's sights, and even presenting them with six cows on which to feast themselves. Middleton was singled out for special treatment, receiving a purse of 150 gold coins as recompense for his sufferings. In return he was obliged to listen to one of the Pasha's insufferable speeches in which he gave fulsome praise to his own wisdom, insight and mild temper. The English commander was bemused by the turn of events but not altogether surprised; he was fast learning of the inconstancies of these Turkish governors who could flick from friend to foe without even losing their smile.

  In mid-February the men at last left Sana'a for the long march back to Mocha. Middleton still had niggling doubts as to the Pasha's sincerity but any fears about returning to Mocha were dispelled when he was told that 'if Rejib Aga wrong you I will pull his skinne over his eares and give you his head.' On their arrival atTaiz, the men hoped to recover Mr Pemberton's boy who had been lodged with the town's governor since collapsing through weakness. But herein lay a problem: 'the governor, Hamet Aga, had forced him to turne Turke, and would by no meanes part with him.' The poor boy had suffered a terrible ordeal during his weeks with the governor: when he refused to convert to Islam, 'some of the Aga's servants [carried] him to a hot-house where they had him naked circumcised perforce.' The governor steadfastly refused to give up his boy and the Englishmen had no option but to continue without him, but Middleton, to his great credit, never forgot the boy and refused to sail from Arabia until he had been released.

  On his arrival in Mocha, Middleton was taken straight to the Aga who 'received me after his wonted dissembled shew of love and kindnesse, bidding me and the rest welcome, saying he was glad of our returne safe, and sorrie and ashamed of what was passed, and prayed me to pardon him'. But long before the Englishmen were able to return to their ship they found themselves marched to a 'great strong house' and once again placed under armed guard. Sir Henry's suspicions had proved all too correct and he now knew that escape was his only option. His plan was a simple one: under cover of darkness he sent a letter to the Trades Increase asking that a bottle of aqua vitae be smuggled into the prison. With this he planned to get his guards drunk, steal their keys and, aware that his face was well known throughout the town, hide himself in an empty barrel and get his men to roll him down to the beach.

  The hour at last arrived. The aqua vitae was successfully smuggled into prison and a boat surreptitiously moored on the southern edge of town. When the guards saw they were being offered alcohol they were unable to refuse and 'fell to drinking hard'. By noon everything was ready: 'the boat being come, and keepers all drunk, and all things fitted . . . I began to put my business in execution.' Unlocking the door to their'strong house', Sir Henry popped into a barrel as planned and was rolled down to the beach where he clambered into the waiting boat and rowed across to the Darling which was riding at anchor.

  Not everyone had been so lucky: the ships' armourer, Thomas Eves, was so fearful of being recaptured that he 'took off his shoes and ran through the streets with all the speed he could, whereupon all the towne rise after him'. It was only a matter of minutes before Mocha was crowded with soldiers who, one by one, picked up the sick and wounded. Lawrence Femell soon found himself in difficulty. Unable to run because of his 'unwieldy fatness' he was hounded by a band of troops as he waddled down to the waterfront. He 'discharged a pistoll in the face of one of them that pursued him, and mortally wounded him' but was eventually captured while up to his armpits in water. He later blamed 'the foolish dealing of that idiot and white- livered fellow the coxswain who, we being in the water .. . fell to leeward of us'. The capture of Femell was a set­back, but Middleton was safe and after offering his thanks to God 'for his great mercy towards us' he joined the celebrations on board the English vessels.

  He was now in a strong position to gain the freedom of Master Femell, Nathaniel Courthope and the other men, including poor Mr Pemberton's boy who was still incarcerated in Taiz. Sending a letter to Rejib Aga, he bragged of his powerful cannon and threatened that unless all the men were immediately released he would sink every ship that entered the port 'and do my best to batter the towne about his ears'. He also wrote a reassuring letter to Femell repeating the threat and adding that 'if I shoot at the town he saith he will requite me with the like, which he cannot do as you well know for his ordnance is far inferior to mine . . . Though I should fire the town and beat it smooth about their ears, whether it be pleasing or displeasing to the Grand Seignor I care not, [for] I am out of reach of his long sword ... let the Pasha and Regib Aga likewise consider that the King of England will not take well the betraying, robbing and murdering of his subjects.'

  The Aga stalled for time but after his port had been blockaded for a month he was forced to 'sing a new song' and all the men were released. Master Femell did not, alas, enjoy his freedom for long; three days after coming aboard 'at about two of the clock in the morning he ended his life, as we thought, by poison.' He had bragged once too often about the power of the English and the enraged Aga, knowing that the chief factor never turned down a meal, had dosed his food with delayed-action poison.

  With the safe return of Mr Pemberton's boy everyone still alive was back on board. The sixth fleet of the East India Company could at long last continue on its voyage to the Banda Islands.

  It was now August 1611, and the fleet which had set sail with such high expectations some sixteen months previously had so far accomplished nothing. If the crew were dispirited by their misfortunes the captains were even more depressed. A rare insight into this depression has survived in the form of a private memo that Downton penned at the height of the troubles; a memo given added poignancy by the fact that its tone so belies the brave good-humour that Downton struggled to present to his crew. In private he was 'environed with swarms of perplexed thoughts' that now, 'after two years travel [we find] our victuals spent, our ships, cables and furniture far worn, men's wages for 24 months already passed, ourselves deluded and abused in most places we have come .... Whether we wish a languishing end, or a shameful return,

  God only direct, for our counsel is weak and our case doubtful.'

  Before sailing from Mocha the two captains took stock of the situation. Their overriding duty was to sail to the Banda Islands to buy nutmeg and mace, but their instructions from the Company allowed them to sail first to India to discover how William Hawkins was faring at the court of Jehangir. They chose this latter option and headed for Surat, but when Middleton learned that trade had been denied he once again put to sea, taking Hawkins with him. Fuming at Jehangir's intransigence, the commander decided

  to sail back to the Red Sea and there compel the Indian dhows to sell their cottons to the English. The benefits would be threefold: the Aga in Mocha would be infuriated by the loss of trade, the Indians would be roundly punished and Mi
ddleton would acquire the calicoes he so desperately needed to exchange for nutmeg and mace.

  It was unfortunate that just as Middleton's ships were setting up their blockade of the Bab-el-Mandeb, the entrance to the Red Sea, John Saris, commander of the East India Company's seventh fleet, was nudging his way towards Mocha. Saris brought with him a letter of recommendation from the Sultan in Constantinople and, ignoring Middleton's warnings about trade with the Arabs, he sailed gaily into the harbour at Mocha. Lavishly entertained by the new Aga — Rejib had since been dismissed — he struck a deal and sent a mission to Sana'a to pay its respects to the Pasha.

  When the Aga learned that Middleton was 'rommaging' ships from India he was incensed and immediately annulled the trading deal he had granted to Saris. The English captain protested in the strongest terms and offered repeated assurances that he was not in league with Middleton, but the Aga refused to believe such a story. Saris now turned his fury on Middleton, boarding the Trades Increase and berating Sir Henry for his stupidity. He vowed to do everything in his power to break Middleton's blockade, 'wherat Sir Henry swore most deeply that if I did take that course he would sink me and set fire of all such ships as traded with me'. What followed was an explosive row in which the two commanders 'used very grosse speeches not fitting to men of their ranks, and were so crosse the one to the other as if they had been enemies.' The two men did eventually strike a deal in which they shared the spoils of the 'rommaging', but Saris's heart was not in the work and he soon set sail for Bantam without paying Middleton the usual compliment of a parting salute. Sir Henry was as angry as he was upset. Realising that his policy of harming the Aga was futile he sailed for Sumatra and Java, finally anchoring in the great harbour at Bantam. Here the East India Company's sixth fleet, which had set out with such high hopes, floundered in the malarial shallows. The Trades Increase was discovered to be riddled with teredos (shipworm) and no longer seaworthy, while the crew had fared little better: dozens succumbed to typhoid, dysentery and malaria and died on board their rotting flagship.

  'I saluted them with three peeces,' wrote John Jourdain, a merchant on the next English ship to arrive in the Indies, 'but noe awnswere nor signe of English coulours, neither from the shipp nor from the towne.' Suspecting that the ship had been captured by locals, 'I shott annother peece ... with determination nott to go a land untill I had certaine notice from thence.' At length Jourdain 'perceived a prow cominge from the shore, wherein came Edward Langley, Christopher Luther, Nathaniel Courthope, and Thomas Harwood, all of them like ghostes or men fraighted. I demanded for the Generall and the rest of our freindes in particuler; [but] I could not name any man of noate but was dead to the number of 140 persons; and the rest which were remayneinge, as well aland and aboard the Trade, weare all sicke, these four persons beinge the strongest of them, whoe were scarce able to goe on their leggs.'

  Most of the men were in the final stages of illness. Middleton himself was dead - some said of a broken heart over the loss of his ship — and the Trades Increase had miserably failed to live up to her name. Of her last days a merchant named Peter Floris wrote: 'She was lying on the ground without mast, with three and thirtie men, the greatest part sicke, the ship being sheathed on one side and not on the other. In her had deceased one hundred English and more Chinese which wrought for wages, and eight Dutch by some strange sicknesse.' Her final demise came all too soon; a renegade Spaniard set fire to her timbers and the once-great vessel, pride of the East India Company, was rapidly reduced to ash.

  The Darling had not fared much better; on arrival at Patani on the Malay Peninsula she was inspected and considered to be in too poor a condition to sail back to England. She would end her days shuttling factors to and from the islands of the East Indies. Only the Peppercorn survived the long voyage home, but even she was unable to reach London and Downton suffered the ignominious fate of having to hire a Frenchman to tow her into Waterford in Ireland. There was no triumphal welcome and none of the crowds that had cheered her off three and a half years before. Instead, Downton stepped onto dry land in October 1613, only to find himself arrested and charged with piracy for his part in the Red Sea 'rommaging'. He was eventually released, but it did little to boost his morale and his diary ends in a mood of black despair. 'And so concluded,' he wrote,'this tedious and out-tyring journey.'

  chapter eight

  The Banner of Saint George

  F

  our months before the Trades Increase had sailed from London, the governor of the East India Company, Sir Thomas Smythe, renewed his acquaintance with Henry Hudson. Smythe was in ebullient mood, for confidence in the spice trade had never been higher and with the successful return ofWilliam Keeling, large sums of money were pouring into the East India Company coffers.

  He had long been considering financing a new voyage of exploration to the Arctic and, just a few months previously, had reminded his committee 'that three yeares since, this Companie did adventure £300 per annum for three yeares towards the discovery of the North-West Passage' - money that remained unspent. These were not the only funds at his disposal: Sir Thomas was also governor of the Muscovy Company whose merchants were growing increasingly enthusiastic about searching for a northern route to the Indies.

  Two other men of importance attended the meeting between Smythe and Hudson. Sir Dudley Digges was a wealthy individual who would shortly write a book entitled Of the Circumference of the Earth, or a Treatise of the North-West

  Passage, a turgid piece of prose that led one critic to remark that 'many of his good friends say he had better have given four hundred pounds than have published such a pamphlet.' Nevertheless, Digges harboured a passion for discovery and was in possession of a large enough fortune to indulge that passion. The third man at the meeting was John Wolstenholme, Farmer of Customs, who also had a long record of promoting voyages to unknown lands.

  All three had studied Hudson's reports of the area around Manhattan and accepted that the mighty river did not lead through to the Pacific Ocean. But there was one last region of North America that held the possibility of a North-West Passage to the Spice Islands — the mysterious 'furious overfall' described by John Davis. This treacherous passage of water, later known as Hudson Strait, had been attempted by many adventurers (George Weymouth was so confident of reaching China via this route that he carried a preacher equipped for converting the heathen spice traders) and although none had been successful in their quest, most had returned with tales of its certain existence.

  With permission from King James sought and gained, Hudson set sail in April 1610 on a mission 'to search and find out a passage by the north-west of America to the sea of Sur, comonly called the South Sea [intending] to advance a trade' to the spice-producing islands of the East Indies. His voyage through the 'furious overfall' was one of the utmost difficulty for spring had yet to arrive and the water was choked with icebergs. Many of the less-experienced crew members began to fear for their lives while the sour-minded Robert Juet, who had accompanied Hudson on his previous voyage, jeered at his hope 'of seeing Bantam by Candlemasse'. The captain was determined to prove Juet wrong and, as he steered the ship into Hudson Bay, pronounced himself 'confidently proud that he had won the passage'. But as the first snows began to fall and the men were forced to winter in desolate James Bay, their enthusiasm plummeted and a handful of conspirators began to whisper of mutiny. 'It was darke,' wrote crew member Abacuk Prickett, 'and they in readinesse to put this deed of darknesse in execution ... Now every man would go to his rest, but wickednesse sleepeth not.'

  Stepping out of his cabin, Hudson found himself seized by two men, pinioned with a rope, and cast into the ship's shallop along with seven of his closest supporters. The mutineers then cut the cable and put up the sails, leaving Hudson and his company 'without food, drink, fire, clothing or other necessaries'. As their little boat drifted off into the night, any lingering hopes of discovering a North-West Passage to the Spice Islands seemed to have died and Hudson, one o
f the great Arctic explorers, was never seen again.

  He was destined not to be forgotten, for some seven years after being cast adrift a spirited captain by the name of Thomas Dermer began a detailed study of all the material relating to Hudson's earlier voyages. Dermer had been obsessed since childhood with discovering a quick route to the 'spiceries' and, after scouring the explorer's charts, plans and journals, he confidently declared that the elusive passage did indeed lie in the region around Manhattan. How he reached this decision remains uncertain, but he had sufficient evidence to persuade his financiers and, soon afterwards, he set off on the first of two voyages to the Hudson.

  Sailing through Long Island Sound and its ever- narrowing inlet, Dermer passed into Upper Bay where he rowed ashore and got into conversation with a group of