(Vol. viii., p. 385.)
The earliest memoir of captain John Davis, the celebrated arctic navigator,
is that given by the reverend John Prince in his DANMONII ORIENTALES
ILLUSTRES, _or the worthies of Devon_, Exeter, 1701, folio. It is, however,
erroneous and defective in important particulars, and has misled some
eminent writers, as Campbell, Eyries, Barrow, &c.
Despite the assertions of master Prince, I _question_ if captain Davis
married a daughter of sir John Fulford; I am _sure_ he was not the first
pilot who conducted the Hollanders to the East-Indies; I am sure the
journal of the voyage is not printed in Hakluyt; I am sure the narrative of
his voyage with sir Edward Michelborne is neither dedicated to the earl of
Essex nor printed in Hakluyt; I am sure he did not write the _Rutter, or
brief directions for sailing into the East-Indies_; I am sure he wrote two
works of which Prince says nothing; I am sure he did not make _five_
voyages to the East-Indies; and I am sure, to omit other oversights, that
he did not "return home safe again." To the latter point I shall now
confine myself.
In 1604 king James, regardless of the charter held by the East-India
company, granted a license to sir Edward Michelborne, one of his
gentlemen-pensioners, to discover and trade with the "countries and
domynions of Cathaia, China, Japan," &c. This license, preserved in the
Rolls-chapel, is dated the twenty-fifth of June. On the fifth of December
sir Edward set sail from Cowes with the Tiger, a ship of 240 tons, and a
pinnace--captain Davis being, as I conceive, the _second_ in command. In
December 1605, being near the island of Bintang, they fell in with a junk
of 70 tons, carrying ninety Japanese, most of them {451} "in too gallant a
habit for saylers:" in fact, they were pirates! The unfortunate result
shall now be stated in the words of the _pirate_ Michelborne:
"Vpon mutuall courtesies with gifts and feastings betweene vs,
sometimes fiue and twentie or sixe and twentie of their chiefest came
aboord: whereof I vould not suffer aboue sixe to have weapons. Their
was neuer the like number of our men aboord their iunke. I willed
captaine John Dauis in the morning [the twenty-seventh of December] to
possesse himselfe of their weapons, and to put the companie before
mast, and to leave some guard on their weapons, while they searched in
the rice, doubting that by searching and finding that which would
dislike them, they might suddenly set vpon my men, and put them to the
sword: as the sequell prooued. Captaine Dauis being beguiled with their
humble semblance, would not possesse himselfe of their weapons, though
I sent twice of purpose from my shippe to will him to doe it. They
passed all the day, my men searching in the rice, and they looking on:
at the sunne-setting, after long search and nothing found, saue a
little storax and beniamin: they seeing oportunitie, and talking to the
rest of their companie which were in my ship, being neere to their
iunke, they resolued, at a watch-word betweene them, to set vpon vs
resolutely in both ships. This being concluded, they suddenly killed
and droue ouer-boord, all my men that were in their ship; and those
which were aboord my ship sallied out of my cabbin, where they were
put, with such weapons as they had, finding certaine targets in my
cabbin, and other things that they vsed as weapons. My selfe being
aloft on the decke, knowing what was likely to follow, leapt into the
waste, where, with the boate swaines, carpenter and some few more, wee
kept them vnder the halfe-decke. At their first comming forth of the
cabbin, they met captain Dauis comming out of the gun-roome, whom they
pulled into the cabbin, and giuing him sixe or seuen mortall wounds,
they thrust him out of the cabbin before them. His wounds were so
mortall, that he dyed assoone as he came into the waste."--Purchas, i.
137.