PERILS AND ADVENTURES
It is only by examining the official correspondence which passed
between the Company’s servants and themselves that we are able to get
a correct insight into the lesser, though usually more human, details
connected with these ships. In the last chapter but one we saw that
the third voyage had been financially satisfactory. But there are a
few sidelights which show that these voyages were not mere pleasure
cruises. If this particular one earned 234 per cent. it was by sheer
hard work on the part of the men and of the ships. Captain Keeling
writes that he had, whilst in the East, to buy “of the Dutch a maine
top-sayle (whereof we had extreame want) and delivered them a note to
the Company, to receive twelve pounds twelve shillings for the same.”
So also it was with men as with sails. Anthony Marlowe writes home to
the Governor of the Company, under date of 22nd June 1608, from on
board the _Hector_, that during the voyage “there hath died in our ship
two foremast men—Wallis and Palline: and two lost overboard, Goodman
and Jones: also there hath died Dryhurst, steward’s mate, John Newcome,
John Asshenhurst, purser’s mate, Mr Quaytmore, purser, and Mr Clarke,
merchant.”
If there was ill-feeling ashore between the English and the Portuguese,
and the English and Dutch, so all was not ever as happy as wedding
bells in the English ships. One June day in 1608, during this third
voyage, a violent enmity had broken out between Anthony Hippon, master
of the _Dragon_, and his mate, William Tavernour. Someone endeavoured
to get them to make up their quarrel, but Hippon was obdurate, and “was
heartened forward in his malice against the said Tavernour by Matthew
Mullynex the master of the _Hector_.”
And there is a further letter, dated 4th December 1608, which was sent
by another of the Company’s servants named James Hearne, which again
calls attention to the _Dragon’s_ want of sails, the ship then being
at Bantam. There was no canvas procurable out there, “therefore,” he
suggests, “one hundred pound more or less, would not be lost in laying
it out in spare canvas in such a voyage as this.” And then he concludes
his letter with a postscript, which shows that the life of a factor
in the Company’s service ashore out in the East was not a lucrative
occupation. “That it may please your worships,” he petitions, “to
consider me somewhat in my wages, for I have served 2 years already at
£4 a month, and in this place I am in, my charge will be greater than
otherwise.”
We have already alluded to the setting forth of the sixth expedition
under Sir Henry Middleton in 1607. Middleton was instructed to proceed
to the west coast of India with the intention of obtaining from Surat
Indian calicoes which would find a ready sale at Bantam and the
Moluccas. Having set forth from England in the year 1610, he arrived at
Aden, where he left the _Peppercorn_, and then with his flag in the
_Trade’s Increase_ sailed for Mocha, which is at the southern end of
the Red Sea. No English vessel had yet thrust her bows into this sea,
though the Portuguese had been there even during the previous century.
And here the _Trade’s Increase_, which had received such an ovation
when she was first launched at the Deptford yard, was to begin the
first of her serious mishaps. Like many another ship that came after
her, famous for unprecedented size, she was destined to be unlucky.
She was making for Mocha with the assistance of native pilots when
she had the misfortune to get badly aground. She was a clumsy,
unhandy ship, and it was natural enough that the natives who had been
accustomed only to their smaller craft might get her into trouble. The
incident occurred in November 1610, and the following account sent home
by one who was on board her at the time may be taken as representative
of the facts. “About five a clocke,” runs the account, “in luffing in
beeing much wind, we split our maine toppe sayle, and putting abroad
our mizen, it split likewise: our Pilots brought our shippe a ground
upon a banke of sand, the wind blowing hard, and the Sea somewhat
high, which made us all doubt her coming off ... we did what we could
to lighten our ship, sending some goods a-land and some aboard the
_Darling_ ... we land as well our Wheat-meale, Vinegar, Sea-coles,
Pitch and Tarre, with our unbuilt Pinnasse, and other provisions which
came next hand, or in the way, as well as Tinne, Lead, Iron, and other
merchandise to be sould, and staved neare all our water.” The reference
to the “unbuilt pinnasse” is explained by the fact that it was the
custom of the Elizabethan and later voyagers to take out from home the
necessary timber and planks and to build the little craft on board as
they proceeded. This kept the men occupied and was a saving in wages,
besides not involving the risk of losing such a craft before the end of
the voyage was being approached. Such a top-heavy, cumbrous vessel as
the _Trade’s Increase_ would need very careful “nursing” in a squall to
prevent her from capsizing, and it is perfectly clear that the sudden
luffing up into the wind to ease her was too much for the canvas that
had already been considerably worn and chafed during the voyage across
the Equator and round the Cape of Good Hope up to the Gulf of Aden.
After some anxious hours the ship was eventually got afloat again, but
Middleton was taken prisoner by the Arabs. For a long while he was
compelled to endure his captivity, but was eventually released and
sailed for Surat, where he arrived with his ships on 26th September
1611, a great deal of valuable time having been lost. Here again he
was unlucky, for a Portuguese squadron of seven ships was waiting
outside. The Portuguese were now so indignant and jealous of the
English interlopers that they were resolved to resist them to the
utmost: otherwise it was obvious that the hard-won wealth of the East
would before long slip right away. All the inspiration and enthusiasm
of Prince Henry the Navigator, all the heroic voyages of the first
Portuguese navigators to the East, all the capital which had been
expended in building and fitting out their expensive caracks would
assuredly be thrown into the sea unless the aggressive Englishmen,
who had penetrated their secrets, were to be thwarted now with
determination. The Portuguese were expecting Middleton’s arrival, for
they had already heard of his being in the Red Sea, and now they were
in sufficient and overwhelming strength to oppose him: for besides
the big ships outside, there were nearly twice as many smaller craft
waiting inside the bar. The Portuguese contention was that they alone
had the right to trade with Surat: the English were not wanted and had
no justification to be there at all.
Middleton’s position was that he had come out from the King of England
bearing a letter and presents to the Great Mogul to put on a firm
footing that trade which Englishmen had already inaugurated, and that
India was open to all nations who wished to trade with her. But, of
course, Middleton did not know at the time the incident which has
already been mentioned in connection with Hawkins and the Great Mogul.
When, however, the news presently reached him, it was to modify his
plans entirely: there could be no good object attained in endeavouring
to establish trade against the opposition of the Mogul and the
Portuguese. The natives were clearly under the thumb of the Portuguese,
and, however willing they might have been, no trade with them was
possible.
So, after taking Hawkins on board, together with the Englishmen who
had been left at Surat, a council was held and ultimately it was
decided to return to the Red Sea so that he could there trade with
the ships from India, since to deal with them in their own country
was not practicable. This decision was carried out, and whether the
traders liked it or not they were compelled to barter the goods
which Middleton required to take farther eastwards to the Indian
Archipelago as previously indicated. But meanwhile there had set out
from England another expedition, consisting of the three ships _Clove_,
_Thomas_ and _Hector_, under the command of Captain Saris, bound for
the Red Sea, having previously obtained a firman, or decree, from
Constantinople which would grant him and his merchants kindly treatment
in the neighbourhood of Mocha and Aden. But on arriving at Socotra,
Saris found a letter from Middleton giving warning of the treacherous
treatment to expect. In spite of this, however, Saris found that the
firman was respected, but eventually deemed it prudent to make for the
Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb, where he met Middleton and agreed with him to
engage in privateering the ships of India. If you had questioned these
English seamen they would have replied unhesitatingly that they were
merely engaged in trade by barter, and that as they had been prevented
by circumstances from carrying on this direct with the Indian continent
they had no other opportunity than to do it at sea. They had been sent
out by the English Company to get the cloths and calicoes to exchange
farther east and they were merely fulfilling their instructions. But in
plain language there was little difference between this and robbery,
or, at the best, compulsory sale at the buyer’s own price.
[Illustration: THE HONOURABLE EAST INDIA COMPANY’S SHIP “BRIDGEWATER”
ENTERING MADRAS ROADS UNDER JURY-RIG AFTER ENCOUNTERING GALES OF WIND.
(By courtesy of Messrs. T. H. Parker Brothers)]
But when all this “trading” was finished and the _Trade’s Increase_
went to Malay Archipelago, she was to bring to a tragic end her short
and adventurous career. Middleton had gone ahead in the _Peppercorn_,
and the _Trade’s Increase_ had been ordered to follow after.
Unfortunately she needed some repairs to her hull. It was customary
before an East Indiaman left the East on her homeward voyage for the
sheathing outside to be attended to, in order that she might make as
fast a passage home as possible. But there were no dry docks out there,
and very few anywhere, even in England or Holland. The practice, which
lasted well into the nineteenth century, was to careen a ship if she
required any attention below the water-line—her seams caulked, or her
bottom tarred. This was done in the case of the _Trade’s Increase_
whilst she was at Bantam, where her sheathing was being seen to. But
she fell over on to her side and became a total loss. One contemporary
account states that whilst the repairs were being done “all her men
died in the careening of her,” and that then some Javanese were hired
to do the job, but five hundred of these “died in the worke before
they could sheath one side: so that they could hire no more men, and
therefore were inforced to leave her imperfect, where shee was sunke
in the Sea, and after set on fire by the Javans.” This was towards the
end of the year 1613. Another contemporary account states that she was
laid up in the ooze, and was set on fire from stem to stern, having
been previously fired twice, at the supposed instigation of a renegade
Spaniard, “which is turned Moor.” She blazed away during the whole of
one night, and her wreck was eventually sold for 1050 reales. When Sir
Henry Middleton heard the news of the loss of his famous flagship, the
pride of all the seas, he was so heart-broken that he died. Thus both
admiral and flagship had perished: it had been a calamitous voyage.
As for Captain Saris, he had sailed to Japan in order to establish
a factory. Notwithstanding the opposition of the Dutch, who were as
jealous of his arrival in the Far East as the Portuguese had been in
India, the Emperor received him favourably and the seeds were sown
for future trade with England which, to change the metaphor, were to
prepare the way for the adoption of Western ideas by the Japanese
during the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries. Strictly speaking,
Japan and China have nothing to do with India. But historically, so
far as our present subject is concerned, they are to an extent bound
together. Not merely did these first captains of the English East
India Company sail thither, but, as the reader will see further on in
this volume, a great deal of trade was done with those parts by the
Company’s servants: and at least one interesting engagement took place
on sea near by, in which the Company’s merchant ships distinguished
themselves.
Notwithstanding the sad loss of the costly _Trade’s Increase_,
Middleton’s voyage had yielded to the Company a profit of 121 per cent.
Captain Saris’s voyage had done even better still, earning 218 per
cent.; but, as we have shown, this was not all earned by legitimate
trade.
The journal of Captain Nicholas Downton of the homeward voyage of the
_Peppercorn_ (which you will remember had been built at the Deptford
yard and went out in company with the _Trade’s Increase_) shows the
kind of hardships which our sailors had to endure whilst earning such
handsome profits for their owners. With thankful hearts this craft
started back from Bantam, though it was to be no pleasant voyage. On
getting under way Downton saluted the admiral by way of farewell. “I
gave him 5 shot,” he writes, “having no more pieces out nor ports
uncaulked”—that is to say, he had prepared his ship for sea, having
run inboard most of his guns and caulked up the ports. The ship had
previously had her sheathing attended to, and all the stores were
aboard. The meat was kept in casks, while the bread and corn were
kept in a “tight room” in order to avoid the ravages of the cacara—“a
most devouring worm,” as Downton quaintly calls it, “with which this
ship doth abound to our great disturbance.” The drinking-water to the
extent of twenty-six tons had also been brought aboard, where it was
kept in casks. But as these were decayed, weak, rotten and leaky the
crew were bound to suffer before they reached home. He did his best to
make her what he calls “a pridie ship”—that is, a trim ship—but though
this was her first homeward voyage she leaked like a basket through
the trenail holes in the stern, owing to the negligence of the wicked
Deptford carpenters, who had scamped their work. The result was that
there were soon twenty inches of water “on our lower orlop.” Certainly
the Company’s yard had not earned much real credit for the way they had
designed and built the _Peppercorn_ and the _Trade’s Increase_.
And so this leaky, crank, badly built ship came fighting her way
along over the trackless ocean, a continuous source of anxiety to her
commander. Troubles often enough come not singly, and the _Peppercorn_
was another unlucky ship. By sheer carelessness she and all hands
barely escaped ending all things by fire at sea. “At noon,” says
Downton, “our ship came afire by the cook his negligence, o’erguzzled
with drink, digged a hole through the brick back of the furnace and
gave the fire passage to the ship’s side, which led to much trouble
besides spoil to our ship.” The punctuation of this sentence needs
no modification to show the short, sharp impressions jotted down by
a choleric captain. The name of this “o’erguzzled” cook was Richard
Hancock, and no doubt he had so undermined his health with drink, or
had been so severely punished by his commander that he could not long
survive, for he died shortly after one day at noon and was buried at
sea.
But he was not the only careless member of the ship’s company. At least
one of the watch-keeping officers was just as bad in his own sphere.
“The 27th at 2 after noon we were suddenly taken short with a gust from
the SE, which by neglect of the principal of the watch not setting in
time, not only put us to much present trouble but also split us two
topsails at once, and blew a third clean away.” The following month
on the eleventh the _Peppercorn_ was at midnight overwhelmed by heavy
squalls which “split our main bonnet and fore course, whereby we were
forced to lie a try with mainsail, the sea very violent, we mending our
sail.”
The meaning of this may not be quite apparent to those unfamiliar with
the ships of those days. The “bonnet” was an additional piece of canvas
laced on to the foot of these square-sails. It had been long in use
by the ships of the Vikings and the English craft of the Middle Ages,
and continued to be used during the Tudor period and the seventeenth
century. Even in the twentieth century it is not quite obsolete, and
is still used on the Norfolk wherries and on some of the North Sea
fishing vessels. It was such a canvas as certainly ought to have been
taken in quickly if the _Peppercorn_ was likely to be struck by a heavy
squall, being essentially a fine-weather addition. And whenever it was
unlaced the equivalent was obtained of putting a reef in the sail. To
“lie a try” was a well-known expression used by the Elizabethan seamen
and their successors: it meant simply what we mean to-day when we
speak of heaving-to. The ship would just forge ahead very slowly under
her mainsail only, being under command but making good weather of the
violent sea of which Downton speaks, and allowing most of the hands to
get busy with the sails, which had to be sent down and repaired.
They had barely begun to resume their voyage when, on the thirteenth of
the month, the _Peppercorn_ broke her main truss—that is to say, the
rope which kept the yard of the mainsail at its centre to the mast. The
main halyards also carried away and again the main bonnet was split,
but this time the mainsail as well. The “main course,” says Downton,
“rent out of the bolt rope”—that is to say, blew right away from the
rope to which it is sewn—and so they were, owing to “want of fit sail
to carry, forced to lie a hull,” which means that they had to heave-to
again. Meanwhile the _Peppercorn_ was still leaking away merrily. “This
day again,” reads an entry in the journal a little later on, “by the
labouring of the ship and beating of her bows in a head sea, whereby we
found in the powder room in the fore part on the lower orlop, 20 or 24
inches water, which have so spoiled, wet and stained divers barrels, so
that of 20 barrels of powder I do not now expect to find serviceable
2 barrels, besides all our match and divers other things.” It would
therefore have gone ill with the _Peppercorn_ if she had fallen in with
a big, powerful Spanish ship on the high seas ready to blaze away at
her.
It took thirty-six hours to get these sails repaired and new ropes
spliced. This mending became in fact the rule rather than the
exception. “Our daily employment either mending of our poor old sails
daily broken, or making new with such poor stuff as we have.” There can
be no doubt whatever that these ships were sent to sea with all too
few stores to allow of accident. We have already seen that additional
canvas could not be obtained in the East, except with the indulgence
of some Dutch captain, who would naturally charge the English the full
value of a new sail, and a bit more. One wonders, indeed, how often
those London merchants realised how dearly these big percentages had
been bought—how only the dogged determination of the captains and
masters, the sufferings of the crews in the leaky, ill-found ships
could provide fortunes and luxuries for those who stayed at home in
ease. However, little though they knew it at the time, it was these
ill-faring mariners who were really building up the foundations of
England’s Eastern wealth and her Eastern Empire. Human lives in those
harsh days were rated low enough, and a poor, common sailor was not
slobbered over. He was merely one of the meshes of the big net cast
into the sea to bring in large spoil to the financiers of that time.
But it has always been thus, and the more long-suffering the seaman
has shown himself, the more courageous and patient he has been, the
more he has been treated with contumely by those very persons who have
obtained all that they possess through his achievements.
It cannot be supposed that these seventeenth-century Indiamen were on
the whole happy ships. The captains feared mutiny all the time, and the
men were compelled to live and work under trying conditions which were
enough to break the spirit of any landsman. Downton’s journal shows
this all too well. Take the following entries, which are sufficiently
expressive:—
“July 2. Mr Abraham Lawes conceives he is poisoned for that his stomach
falls away, and he hath often inclination to vomit, for he saith he was
so at Venice, when he was formerly poisoned.”
Three days later Thomas Browning died, and on 27th July comes this
entry:
“This day Mr Lawes died and is opened by the surgeon who took good
note of his inward parts which was set down by the surgeon and divers
witnesses to that note.” Similarly on 21st August: “Men daily fall
down into great weakness”; and, again, four days later: “Edw. Watts,
carpenter, died at midnight.” Under the twenty-ninth of the same month
we find the following entry:—“Stormy weather, dry, the night past
Thomas Dickorie died. Most of my people in a weak estate.” The last
day of the month we read that “John Ashbe died by an imposthume at 7
o’clock after noon,” and other members of the ship’s company continued
to die almost daily. An “imposthume,” by the way, is an abscess.
But the _Peppercorn_, though she had long since crossed the line, and
was even now beyond the Bay of Biscay, was destined to suffer ill
luck right to the end of her voyage. She ought, of course, to have
rounded Ushant and then squared away up the English Channel. But as a
fact Downton got right out of his reckoning. He rather imagined that
his reckoning was wrong and suspected “all the instruments by which we
observed the variation by.” The result was that he got farther to the
north than he expected. He therefore ran right across the western mouth
of the English Channel without sighting anything, so that eventually
he found himself between Wales and Ireland—miles and miles out of his
course. All too late he realised the mistake, so determined to put in
to the nearest port. He thought of Milford, but as the _Peppercorn_
would not fetch thither, he decided to run for Waterford in Ireland. He
ran down to the coast, but when off the entrance a thick fog enshrouded
the land, so he had to put out to sea once more, being able eventually
to run into Waterford river when a more favourable opportunity
presented itself. He had got his ship safe back into the Narrow Seas,
but he had arrived a long way short of the River Thames and the port
of London, and it would mean the wasting of further delay before the
_Peppercorn’s_ rich cargo could be sold in the metropolis. But with
what success this voyage concluded to the stock-holders we have already
seen.
[Illustration: THE “HALSEWELL,” EAST INDIAMAN.
(By courtesy of Messrs. T. H. Parker Brothers)]
Apropos of this voyage there is still preserved a letter written by
Downton “aboard the _Peppercorn_ to the Right Worshipful the Indian
Company in Philpot Lane, September 15, 1613,” in which this captain
asks for “3 cables and other cordage of divers sizes, a set of sails,
sail needles and twine, and some Hamburrough lines for sounding lines.”
With regard to the bad land-fall which Downton made coming home, there
can be no doubt that he had reason to suspect those crude, inaccurate
navigation instruments to which we have already called attention. In
addition, of course, the early seventeenth-century charts bristled
with errors. As for Eastern waters, the English skippers were much
indebted to the charts which the Dutchmen had made for themselves, the
Dutch at this time being the best cartographers in the world. There is
at least one instance of a navigator of one of the English East India
Company’s ships “finding it to be truely laid down in Plat or Draught
made by Jan Janson Mole, a Hollander, which he gave to Master Hippon,
and he to the Companie.” To this knowledge received by the Company
were added the “plots” (_i.e._ charts) which their own masters of
ships brought home at the end of every voyage, amended and added to as
their experience dictated. We have already seen that it was compulsory
for the master of every East Indiaman to deliver to the Governor of
the English East India Company four copies of his journal and other
“worthy” observations of his voyage within ten days of his arrival
back in the Thames. The information thus derived was systematised, and
as time went on and the voyages became more numerous still there was
thus accumulated a number of invaluable sailing directions which were
to be condensed into “Rules for our East India Navigations” by the
famous John Davis of Limehouse, who had himself made no less than five
voyages. The East India Company thus not only built its own ships at
its own dockyard, victualled them from its own stores, but conducted
its own hydrography department. It was therefore positively unique
in its monopolies and self-dependence. England has never had any
corporation like it: and it is pretty certain it never will.
FOOTNOTES: