n r r AV' r ^*t l % > *' J * "i f < f '*V*"*l r * %-"N. V"'* > ~ - DVENTURERS IK r T"^ i t r ^ T" \ t" ' ' T" fsj i - - AS I > .1 I I. .1 i I ,j Yx_' ARNOLD UNIVERSITY of TAMFORNIA /> r LOS LIBRARY EARLY ENGLISH ADVENTURERS IN THE EAST EARLY ENGLISH ADVENTURERS IN THE EAST By ARNOLD WRIGHT SECOND EDITION LONDON : ANDREW MELROSE, LTD 3 YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN, W.C 1917 ' It is always the adventurous who accomplish great things and not the monarchs of great empires." Montesquieu. Published April 19x7 Reprinted November 1917 PREFACE THIS work covers the period which intervened be- tween Drake's circumnavigation of the world at 4 the close of the sixteenth century and the founding of Calcutta at the end of the seventeenth century. Those were the years in which the initial efforts were made by the English to establish themselves in the East as traders. *., It was, as far as this part of the world is concerned, pre- eminently the age of the adventurer the merchant ad- venturer, if you will, but still of the true adventurer who ? seeks fortune by his daring enterprise and his mother wit. ^5 For varied interest and picturesqueness, there is no more I fascinating period than this in the whole of the Empire's past. Tragedy and comedy mingled their elements in what was in essence one of the most romantic dramas of 5 the world's history. Men started out to build up a com- %, mercial connexion, and they ended in laying the founda- tions of a dominion over alien peoples more wonderful than that of Rome in her palmiest days. How this was accomplished is told in the accompanying pages, but the author's aim has been not so much to write an exhaustive history as to bring into prominence the personalities of those who were engaged in this great work to show what 5 6 PREFACE manner of men they were, how they struggled and fought and how in many cases they died for their country in furtherance of aims which on their full fruition in subse- quent years were to lead to the dominance of the British race in India. Their splendid part in the building of the Empire has been obscured by the more dazzling achieve- ments of the men of a later generation who on an ampler stage and with more impressive accessories carried forward the story of British ascendency from crisis to crisis to its magnificent denouement in the unchallenged supremacy of Britain under the eegis of the Crown. Few of those who read this work, however, will be prepared to deny that many of these humble adventurers of the seven- teenth century are fully worthy of a place in the illustrious roll of men who made the Empire. It should be stated that the work is mainly based on the splendid series of records preserved at the India Office, which supply a full history of the early life of the English in the East. In the prosecution of his researches the author received the most complete facilities from the cour- teous officials at the India Office Library, and he desires to avail himself of this opportunity of making due acknow- ledgment of their kindness. As far as the earliest years of the period dealt with are concerned he has to express his indebtedness to the useful series of transcripts edited by Mr. Wm. Foster under the authority of the Indian Government. These volumes, reproducing as they do in faithful detail the text of the older documents, many of which are illegible to any but an expert archivist, are of immense value to the writer who is dealing with any PREFACE 7 special phase of British Indian history. The hope may be permitted that the series will be continued until all the rich store of historical fact and incident is made readily accessible to the literary student. A. W. LONDON, January, 1914. LIST OF CONTENTS FADES CHAPTER I. THE DAWN OF THE EMPIRE Drake's circumnavigation of the globe The defeat of the Invincible Armada and its effects Fenton's disas- trous enterprise Cavendish's voyage round the world Expedition to the East commanded by Raymond His ship founders in a storm off the Cape James Lancaster succeeds to the command His career He visits Penang Raids Portuguese shipping in the Straits of Malacca He returns to England Subsequent expedition to Brazil Ralph Fitch and others proceed to the East overland Fitch's account of his travels The Dutch Admiral Hout- man conducts a voyage to the East Its effect on Eng- lish enterprise ....... 1-34 CHAPTER II. HOW LANCASTER INITIATED THE EASTERN TRADE Formation of the East India Company Elizabeth grants a charter Sir Edmund Michelborne and Lancaster rivals for the command of the Company's first expedition The latter appointed John Davis of Sundridge pro- ceeds with the fleet Arrival of the expedition at Acheen Favourable reception by the King Portuguese oppo- sition Successful raid on Portuguese shipping by Lancaster Farewell interview with the King The fleet visits Bantam and returns home Successful results of the voyage ....... 95-54 CHAPTER III. A FIGHT TO A FINISH James I gives Michelborne a licence to trade in the East Michelborne' s voyage to the East with Davis as chief 9 10 LIST OF CONTENTS PAGES lieutenant Acts of piracy off the Javan coast English ships fall in with a Japanese pirate vessel Sudden attack by the Japanese A terrific combat Davis is slain A happy thought Defeat and extermination of the Japanese Michelborne returns home . . . 55-64 CHAPTER IV. LIFE AT SEA IN THE SEVEN- TEENTH CENTURY Wide range of the East India Company's operations Henry Middleton conducts a voyage to Bantam Keel- ing, Sharpeigh and David Middleton command expedi- tions to the East Building of the Trade's Increase James I christens it Life on the Company's ships The character of the crews Preachers appointed to the ships The Company's commanders Discourses by William Keeling and Nicholas Downton . . . 65-72 CHAPTER V. HOW THE ENGLISH WENT TO INDIA William Hawkins is landed at Surat Makarrab Khan, the local governor A typical Mogul official His atti- tude towards the English Hawkins proceeds to Agra Description of the city of that day Jehangir on the throne of the Great Mogul He gives Hawkins a friendly reception Takes him into his service Hawkins' ad- vance to power His marriage Effect of Jehangir's patronage of Hawkins on the officials at Surat Jehan- gir's character His debauchery and cruelty Downfall of Hawkins .... . 73-90 CHAPTER VI. ENGLISH CAPTIVES IN ARABIA Sharpeigh conducts an expedition to Aden Jourdain's account of the voyage Description of Aden Rejib Aga, the Turkish governor, detains Sharpeigh Jour- dain and Glasscock proceed overland to Mocha Un- successful effort to trade Departure of the expedition Sir Henry Middleton arrives at Aden with a fleet Pro- ceeds to Mocha in the Trade's Increase Attacked and made prisoner ....... 91-10J LIST OF CONTENTS 11 PAGES CHAPTER VII. A GALLANT BUT UNFORTUNATE COMMANDER Downton schemes to release Middleton Fricton between Downton and Middleton A reconciliation Middleton effects his escape Turns the tables on the enemy Exacts redress Femell, the factor, poi-oned by R jib Aga Middloton proceeds with his fleet to Surat Unable to trade owing to combined native and Portuguese oppo- sition Returns to the Red Sea Institutes a blockade Dissensions amongst the commanders Middleton raises the blockade and proceeds to Bantam Destruction of the Trade * Increase Death of Middleton His char- acter ........ 104-115 CHAPTER VHL ENGLISH AND PORTUGUESE RIVALRY Unfavourable English prospects in India Thomas Best conducts a fleet to India Is a tacked by the Portuguese Defeat of th Portuguese with great loss Mogul authorities grant a firman to trade at Surat Mogul Government declares war on the Portuguese Downton arrives off Surat with a fleet Is attacked in Swally Roads by Portuguese He beats off his assailants The Rev. Peter Rogers attacks Downton Death of Down- ton His patriotic virtues ..... 116-130 CHAPTER IX. AN ENGLISH MISSION TO THE COURT OF THE GREAT MOGUL Jehangir's attitude towards the English Obstruction to trade Sir Thomas Roe despatched aa ambassador His early career His reception by Jehangir Opposi- tion of Prince Kburrum and Asaf Khan Roe out of favour with the Emperor 1 restored to grace Jehan- gir's partiality for Roe The Emperor's jokes Drink- ing bouts at the palace An Oriental Hansard Roe's difficulties ....... 131-146 12 LIST OF CONTENTS PAGES CHAPTER X. AN IMPERIAL DESPOT IN DRESS AND UNDRESS Jehangir moves his Court The splendours of the im- perial camp Jehangir and the fakir The Court estab- lished at Mandu Roe at Mandu His ill-health Jehan- gir intercepts and appropriates the presents from Eng- land Roe and the Emperor An amusing audience Jehangir and the English mastiffs A curious ceremony Prince Khurrum returns in triumph from the war Roe and the prince Roe forms an alliance with Asaf Khan and Noor Mahal Asaf Khan espouses the English cause in durbar Roe's rictory .... 147-164 CHAPTER XI. A GROUP OF ENGLISH ADVEN- TURERS IN INDIA Robert Trully, the cornet player William Hemsell, the Great Mogul's coachman Richard Steele His Agra waterworks scheme Thomas Coryat, " the Odcombe Leg Stretcher " Coryat's early career at the Court of James I Coryafa crudities Coryat's journey overland to India Coryat's audience of Jehan- gir The Emperor and a Christian convert Coryat pre- pares to return home He dies and is buried at Surat Roe's last days in India He secures an agreement from the Mogul Government permitting the English to trade He returns to England ..... 165-176 CHAPTER XII. ENGLISH AND DUTCH RIVALRY IN THE EAST The fight for th spic- trade The Dutch predominance in the Eastern Archipelago Dutch hostility to the English Jourdain's expedition to the Moluccas Jan Pieterson Coen, the great Dutch administrator His interview with Jourdain Jourdain driven from the Moluccas Deplorable condition of the English at Ban- tam The English occupy Poolo Ai Further English xpedition to the Moluccas Its withdrawal Dutch re- occupy Poolo Ai ...... 177-188 LIST OF CONTENTS 13 PAGES CHAPTER Xin. FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH New expedition to the Moluccas under Nathaniel Court- hope Occupation of Poolo Roon by the English Dutch expedition to evict the English Courthope's de- fiance The Dutch capture the English ship Swan Courthope prepares for a Dutch attack The English ship Defence captured by the Dutch The Dutch Gover- nor, General Reaal, seeks an accommodation with Court- hope Courthope declines his terms Dutch proclama- tion against the English Unsuccessful attempt to re- lieve Courthope Courthope's indomitable spirit Sir Thomas Dale conducts an expedition against the Dutch Action off Jakatra (Batavia) The Dutch retire to the Moluccas The English occupy Jakatra Dale returns to India His death Dutch attack on English ships at Patani Jourdain is treacherously slain Isolation of Court Hope His gallant fight against odds and his heroic death 189-208 CHAPTER XIV. THE BLACK TRAGEDY OF AM- BOINA Conclusion of the Treaty of Defence Disagreements as to its interpretation. The English in the Eastern is- lands Gabriel Towerson, the chief agent Van Speult, the Dutch governor Description of Amboina A Japan- ese arrested for conspiring against the Dutch He impli- cates the English Abel Price under torture confirm* the story Arrest of Towerson and the other English officials They are examined and under torture confess their guilt Subsequent protestations of innocence The infamy of the transactions .... 209-225 CHAPTER XV. THE LAST SCENE OF ALL Condemnation of the Amboina prisoners Reprieve of two of the English A fateful lottery The condemned Englishmen refused the Sacrament They solemnly re- new their protestations of innocence The last night passed in prayer and praise A touching memorial of the occasion The day of execution Meeting between the English and the Japanese prisoners Bearing of 14 LIST OF CONTENTS the English in their last moments The execution Strange happenings Effect produced in England by the episode A belated settlement What was " the Massacre of Amboina " ? The English withdraw from the Eastern islands ...... PAGE3 226-239 CHAPTER XVI. THE ENGLISH IN THE PERSIAN GULF Portuguese supremacy in the Gulf challenged Goa, the Portuguese capital in the East Sir Robert Shirley the Shah of Persia's ambassador English open a trad- ing factory in Persia Shah Abbas's hatred of the Portu- guese His gift of Jask to the English Ruy Freire de Andrade, the Portuguese commander, conducts a fleet to the Gulf Portuguese ultimatum to the Shah Action between the Portuguese and the English off Jaak English fleet under Captain Shilling drives off the Portu- guese English fleet under Captains Blyth and Weddell, assisted by a Persian land force, attacks and defeats Portuguese at Kishm Baffin, the Arctic explorer, killed in the fight Surrender of Ruy Freire Ormuz attacked and occupied Downfall of the Portuguese power in the Gulf . 240-255 CHAPTER XVII. THE ENGLISH SECURE A PER- MANENT FOOTHOLD IN INDIA Joint English and Dutch attack on Bombay A Dutch iconoclast Effect of the cruelties of the Inquisition at Goa on the English and the Dutch English attack on the Portuguese at Surat Sir William Courten's associa- tion Acquisition by the English of territory on the Coromandel Coast Foundation of Fort St. George (Madras) Occupation of Bombay proposed to the East India Company Importance of the position Bombay forms part of the dower of Charles IPs Queen, Catherine of Braganza Sir George Oxenden's mission to Western India, Royal expedition for the occupation of Bombay Portuguese Viceroy declines to surrender the island English troops landed at Angediva, near Goa Bombay handed over and occupied by the English Dutch and French opposition The island ceded by Charles II to LIST OF CONTENTS 15 the East India Company Oxenden defends the Surat factory against an attack by Sivaji Death of Oxenden Gerald Aungier's successful administration of Bombay Present grandeur of the city .... CHAPTER XVIIL THE ENGLISH ON THE EAST COAST OF INDIA The first expedition to Bengal Gabriel Boughton, a friend at Court . obtains trading facilities for the Com- pany Factories established at Balasor, Cassimbazar and Patna in subordination to Hooghly Sir Edward Winter's coup cTttat at Madras George Foxcroft, the President, imprisoned Expedition to restore the status quo Winter surrenders Sir William Langhorne's mission ........ PAGES 256-273 374-282 CHAPTER XIX. THE ARCH INTERLOPER- THOMAS PITT Interlopers in the Bay of Bengal Thomas Pitt, a load- ing member of the fraternity Governor Hedge's discrip- tion of an interloping party ashore Pitt's trading ven- tures He defies the Company He returns to England and is arrested and fined Reappears in India The Company makes terms with him and appoints him president of Fort St. George (Madras) His adminis- tration The Pitt diamond and ita history Last years in England Pitt's character .... 283-280 CHAPTER XX. JOB CHARNOCK FOUNDS CAL- CUTTA Expedition to Bengal to exact redress for wrongs inflicted upon the English Job Charnock assigned the post of honour His career Charnock sacks Hooghly Evacu- ation of Hooghly and temporary occupation of Sutanuti, the modern Calcutta Subsequent removal to Hijili Attack by Mogul troops Gallant defence Dire strait* of the garrison Welcome reinforcements Peace con- cluded Return of the English to Sutanuti Charnock in disgrace New expedition under Heath Its failure English retire to Madras Are invited back to Bengal Calcutta founded Charaock'i last days His charac- ter 290-308 16 LIST OF CONTENTS PAGES CHAPTER XXI. THE ADVENTURERS AND THEIR TIMES The passing of the era of adventure The early English communities in the East How they lived Their reli- gious observances The first Indian convert The pomp observed by the chief officials Their dress Few Englishwomen in India Drinking habits of the men Literary tastes What expatriation to the East meant in the eighteenth century The debt Britain owes to the early adventurers ...... 309-318 CHAPTER I The Dawn of the Empire Drake's circumnavigation of the globe The defeat of the Invincible Armada and its effects Fenton's disastrous enterprise Cavendish's voyage round the world Expedition to the East commanded by Raymond His ship founders in a storm off the Cape James Lancaster succeeds to the command His career He visits Penang Raids Portuguese shipping in the Straits of Malacca He returns to England Subsequent expedition to Brazil Ralph Fitch and others proceed to the East overland Fitch's account of his travels The Dutch admiral, Houtman, conducts a voyage to the East Its effect on English enterprise. WHEN the long reign of Elizabeth was drawing towards its splendid close there was planted in the minds of Englishmen a mighty idea. Their con- ception was of an England no longer self-centred and self- contained no mere " sceptred isle " seated in splendid isolation upon the inviolate sea, but of a power which, bursting the artificial bonds imposed by an arrogant foreign domination, would make its commercial frontiers, co-terminous with the utmost limits of the known world. Many causes contributed to produce this awakening of the national consciousness to the country's higher des- tinies. The voyages of the early navigators, by lifting the curtain upon the realities of that mysterious outer world which had existed hitherto to a large extent only in the imagination, created an interest in strange peoples 17 B 18 EARLY ENGLISH ADVENTURERS IN THE EAST and unfamiliar lands. The stream of wealth which flowed into Spain and Portugal from their distant possessions also acted as a powerful stimulus to the policy of adven- ture. But undoubtedly it was Drake's circumnavigation of the world in 1577 which gave the first direct impulse to the national desire for a " place in the sun," to use a modern phrase. That wonderful achievement, by its incomparable audacity as an essay in seamanship, not less than by its brilliant success as an exercise in the ever- popular process of " singeing the Spaniard's beard," had thrilled the imagination of the people to an extraordinary degree. It was the electric spark which set aflame the smouldering ambitions of the nation and brought to life schemes of commercial aggrandisement which had hitherto been mere vague aspirations. It was realized that where Drake and his little handful of men had gone, and where Cavendish had followed, others equally brave and resolute could go. The Eastern seas were wide, the markets there open to all who were adventurous enough to resort to them ; the native populations were not unkindly disposed. Nothing, in fact, but the barrier of an insolent claim to monopoly was interposed to the creation of wide and lucrative new openings for trade. The barrier, it is true, was a substantial one nothing less than the armed might of the two greatest naval powers then existing ; but the nation was in the mood to take whatever risks there might be in challenging this powerful combination. Accurately interpreting the national will Elizabeth issued her defiant replies to the Spanish protests. In burning words she declined to accept the limitations by which his most Catholic Majesty sought to keep English ships from trespassing upon his Eastern preserves. Her THE DAWN OF THE EMPIRE 19 spirited assertions of English independence of the famous decree of Pope Alexander VI dividing the world between the Spanish and the Portuguese were amongst the most potent of the causes which led to the despatch of the Spanish Armada in 1588. And the defeat of the Armada in its turn was another important link in the chain of cir- cumstances which associates Drake's adventure with the establishment of British power in the East. For the victory not only freed England from a foreign religious despotism, but it threw open the seas of the world to her trade. The influence which for nearly a century had made the whole of the opulent markets of the Orient a close pre- serve for Spain and Portugal was, in fact, fatally under- mined by the three days' struggle in the English Channel and the subsequent chase. The bleaching timbers of the Spanish galleons on the Irish and Scotch coasts were the monuments of a dead era. From that time England set her face towards the East, never again to turn from it. Though the defeat of the Spanish Armada was the real turning point in the history of English expansion over- seas the keen spirit of adventure which had been aroused by Drake's circumnavigation of the world found active expression [in several directions prior to the great sea victory. One enterprise which grew out of the enthusiasm of the period was an expedition organized by the Earl of Leicester under the direct patronage of Elizabeth for pur- poses of trade with the East by way of the Cape. To dis- guise the real purpose of the voyage it was given out that its object was the discovery of the North-West passage to India that will o' the wisp which in the earlier period of the century then closing had lured so many intrepid English and Dutch navigators to splendid failures in the 20 EARLY ENGLISH ADVENTURERS IN THE EAST icy regions of the Arctic Circle. Two ships, the Bear, galleon of 400 tons, and the Edward Bonaventure, of 300, were contributed by the Queen, and two smaller craft, of 60 tons and 40 tons respectively, furnished by private enterprise, constituted the fleet. The command was entrusted to Edward Fenton, a scion of a well-known Nottinghamshire family, who with a spirit common in that age had abjured the easy life of a country gentleman for a career of adventure. He had sailed in Frobisher's second voyage for the discovery of the North- West passage in command of one of the vessels of the fleet. But apart from this he had had little ex- perience in seamanship. What he lacked in this respect was supplied by the second in command, Wm. Hawkins, a member of the famous Plymouth family, who had all the genius of his race for navigation. Unhappily, from the outset of the expedition a keen rivalry arose between the two commanders as a result of the superior attainments of the subordinate. Fenton was domineering and headstrong, and he was altogether lacking in the steadfastness which was necessary to bring to a successful conclusion so arduous and even perilous an enterprise as a voyage to the East then was. When the fleet reached St. Helena at the end of Sep- tember the eccentric admiral was seized with the fantastic idea of annexing the island and proclaiming himself king of it. The little Atlantic islet, to be rendered famous more than two centuries later by Napoleon's incarceration upon it, is an agreeable resting-place after a long voyage, but it was then far too isolated and exposed to be held for a year by any power that did not possess absolute mastery at sea. This truth was ultimately realized by Fenton, THE DAWN OF THE EMPIRE 21 but in abandoning his mad purpose he took up with another scheme equally futile and in its results more mischievous, Instead of prosecuting the voyage to the East he con- ducted a semi-piratical raid along the coast of Brazil. One of his smaller vessels suffered shipwreck off the mouth of the River Plate, and the crew manning it were seized and sent prisoners to Lima. The remaining vessels, after a brush with a Spanish fleet, directed their course to Eng- land, which they reached on June 27, 1583. When the fleet dropped anchor in the Downs Hawkins was a close prisoner in irons. He afterwards gave out that Fenton had attempted his life to prevent the exposure of his folly. Fenton's own story, of course, was different ; but the fiasco in which the enterprise had resulted was too com- plete to be explained away by any failings of a subordinate. Fenton, after the facts had been investigated, dropped into obscurity. What became of Hawkins is an interesting problem of history. He is identified by some authorities with a notable commander in the employ of the East India Company who will be met with further on in this narrative. But the connexion has by no means been satisfactorily established. The strong probability appears to be that he shared the disrepute which attached to the expedition to the extent of not again being entrusted with an impor- tant command at sea. In the year following Fenton's fruitless essay in explora- tion Raleigh conducted the first of the series of memorable expeditions which resulted in the foundation of the Colony of Virginia and the establishment of the English connexion with the North American Continent. His achievements in that region constitute a brilliant page in English history. But more to the immediate purpose of this work was the 22 EARLY ENGLISH ADVENTURERS IN THE EAST voyage undertaken by Thomas Cavendish in 1586 to the East. Following closely the course steered by Drake nine years previously Cavendish proceeded by way of the Straits of Magellan to the Moluccas and thence home round the Cape of Good Hope. The enterprise was not less successful than was its earlier prototype. Attacks on Spanish shipping in the Eastern seas yielded a rich har- vest of spoil which returned to the promoters of the enter- prise a handsome dividend on their capital outlay. Cavendish's success wiped out the effect of Fenton's failure. People once more turned their thoughts to the possibility of opening up a trade with the East. When the country had fairly settled down after the excitement of the defeat of the Armada a further adventure, having for its object the exploitation of Eastern markets, was floated. It brought to the front, in the person of James Lancaster, a man who was destined to leave his mark on the history of the development of the British Empire in the East. Lancaster was a typical specimen of the Elizabethan sea dog. His place of birth and his ancestry are obscure, but his early years of manhood appear to have been spent in roving after the approved manner of his class. From his own statements we gather that he was brought up amongst the Portuguese, that during this period of youth he " lived among them as a gentleman, served them as a soldier, and associated with them as a merchant." He acquired a perfect knowledge of their language and as complete an insight into their character. Familiarity, in his case, markedly bred contempt. He described them as a people without truth or faith, who if they could not prevail by force would strive to win an advantage with their " deceiv- able tongues." His feeling was something more than the THE DAWN OF THE EMPIRE 23 common prejudice of the period against the two great colon- izing races. It was a passion which savoured of revenge for some dire injury done. As a mental equipment for a leader in an enterprise such as that to which we have referred, the mere despatch of which gave a direct chal- lenge to Portuguese supremacy in the East, it was not to be equalled in stimulative force. Only the burning memory of wrongs suffered could, perhaps, have carried forward to a successful issue the great movement for widening the bounds of England's commerce of which Lancaster may be said to have been the pioneer. Another qualification of value in this connexion to which Lancaster could lay claim was the fact that he had served in the Armada fight directly under Drake. What that meant to a man of the Elizabethan adventurer class we cannot perhaps at this distance of time adequately realize. But by analogy drawn from the events of a more recent period it is possible to believe that the heroes of the classic con- test carried with them in their undertakings a prestige which had its influence on friend and foe alike. Lancaster in the expedition with which we are now dealing served as second in command under George Ray- mond, whose appointment as " General " to adopt the phraseology of the time had been secured by influence amongst the little coterie of London merchants who sup- plied the funds. There were three ships in all equipped for this formidable task of driving a wedge into the Portu- guese Eastern trade monopoly. Raymond hoisted his flag on the Penelope, a vessel of somewhat over 300 tons burthen ; Lancaster brought to the rendezvous the Edward Bonaventure, the ship of 300 tons which he had commanded in the Armada conflict ; while a third craft of about 60 24 EARLY ENGLISH ADVENTURERS IN THE EAST tons, the Merchant Royal, was in charge of Samuel Fox- croft. It will thus be seen that the united tonnage of this fleet, as it was grandiloquently called, did not exceed that registered for a good sized pleasure yacht of our day. The expedition sailed from Plymouth on April 10, 1591, touched at the Canary Islands about a month later, and in August dropped anchor off Saldania, in the modern Table Bay. Although the voyage had thus far not been an unduly protracted one " the disease of the sea," the terrible scurvy, had worked havoc amongst the crew. The ravages of the malady were so great that Raymond decided to send back the Merchant Royal with the worst of the sick cases in order that his further operations might not be hampered, and the safety of the fleet possibly imperilled by the presence of these miserable human wrecks in his vessels. The voyage was resumed by the Penelope and the Edward Bonaventure on September 8. The Cape was doubled on the following day, and almost immediately the ships fell in with one of those hurricanes which have given unenviable distinction to the great South African promontory in the annals of navigation. In the whole range of natural phenomena there is, per- haps, nothing more awe-inspiring than one of these Atlantic tempests. Immense waves fifty or sixty feet high, whose white tip of foam accentuates their inky blackness, sweep in majestic grandeur along, conveying in their irresistible might a sense of power which seems to reduce to absolute nothingness the puny human efforts to avert the calamity which each mountainous mass of water appears to threaten. The sky overhead, thick with sombre masses of cloud, is gashed with great streaks of lightning which, playing about the masts of the labouring ship, form from time to time balls THE DAWN OF THE EMPIRE 25 of fire whose radiance suffuses the scene with an unearthly brilliancy. All the time the wind howls through the rigging with a shrieking noise which deafens the ear and adds another element of horror to impressions already fully charged with fateful significance. It was into such a scene as this that the two ships were hurried on that eventful September day in 1591. For a time they kept company, but on the evening of the fourth day after leaving Table Bay those on the deck of the Edward Bonaventure saw an immense wave engulf the Penelope. As from that moment her lights were no longer visible, they drew the inference correct as it proved that she had foundered with all on board. The Edward Bonaven- ture continued to battle with the storm for four days. Then an appalling catastrophe occurred which seemed for the moment to have sealed the vessel's fate. About ten o'clock in the morning a flash of lightning, accompanied by a deafening crash of thunder, struck the ship. Not a single soul on board escaped the shock. Four men were killed outright, " their necks being wrung in sonder with- out speaking any word," as the graphic narrative of the historian of the expedition puts it. As to the other mem- bers of the crew, " some were stricken blind, others were burned in their legs and others in their breasts so that they voided blood ; while others, again, were drawn out at length as though they had been racked." Happily this was the dying effort of the storm. In a few days the conditions had so much improved that the crew were able to rest and recover from the effects of the lightning. A call at Zanzibar enabled Lancaster to take on board a pilot who knew the East Indies. He is described in the narrative of Edmund Barker, Lancaster's sub- 26 EARLY ENGLISH ADVENTURERS IN THE EAST ordinate, as a " negro," but in all probability he was of the same race as the Indian seamen who in this era compose the lascar crews of many of our ocean-going steamers in the East. Such have for ages navigated the Indian ocean, and they no doubt constituted a numerous community at Zanzibar at the end of the sixteenth century as they do to-day. Whatever his nationality the pilot must have proved of great service to Lancaster. Drake and Cavendish's expeditions had not touched at any part of India, nor had they utilized in their passage from the China Sea to the Atlantic the Straits of Malacca, which now are almost invariably traversed by vessels proceeding to or coming from the Far East. The pilot's local knowledge enabled Lancaster not only to test the value of the great strategic waterway which we command by the possession of Singa- pore, but, what for him at the time was of more moment, to make personal acquaintance with the natural advan- tages of Penang. When the Edward Bonaventure got into the Indian Ocean the old enemy, scurvy, reappeared in an aggravated form. The crew in time was so reduced that it became imperative that a rather prolonged stay should be made in some salu- brious locality. After touching at the Nicobar Islands, Lancaster sailed for Penang where he arrived at the beginning of June with his men in the last stages of weak- ness. The excellent air of the island was a tonic which had its effect on the enfeebled constitutions of many ; but Penang then was an uninhabited waste devoid of the fresh food supplies which were so essential to the invalids. Twenty-six of the unfortunates died in a short time, amongst them Mr. Rainold Golding, " a merchant of great honesty THE DAWN OF THE EMPIRE 27 and much discretion." He and his fellows were the first of British birth whose bones were laid to rest in Malaya. The survivors in the Edward Bonaventure numbered thirty- three men and one boy, and of these " not past twenty- two were sound for labour and help and not past a third part sailors." Serious, even desperate, as the condition of the expedi- tion was Lancaster did not abandon hope. On the con- trary he made his departure from Penang at the end of August, 1592, the starting-point of some rather audacious freebooting. Espying three ships in the Straits one morn- ing he gave them chase and eventually overhauled them. Two, which were native craft laden with merchandise, be- longing to Pegu traders, were allowed to continue their voyage ; but the third ship, proving to be Portuguese owned, was confiscated. Afterwards a further small capture was made and a large vessel of 400 tons, the St. Thome, only missed becoming a prize by reason of the fact that the Edward Bonaventure was too shorthanded to spare men to sail her. The same considerations did not prevent Lancaster from attacking a great galleon of 700 tons which a day or two later appeared on the scene, to his immense gratification. The Portuguese captain, after a show of resistance, hauled down his colours. When the ship was searched it was found to be laden with wine and a miscellaneous cargo of silks, velvets and haberdashery. It was a prize rich enough in the eyes of Lancaster to compensate for all the perils of the voyage. He now determined to retrace his course homewards. Early in December he arrived off Ceylon, and rounding the Cape in March, 1593, he dropped anchor at St. Helena in the first days of April. There he found a poor wretch named 28 EARLY ENGLISH ADVENTURERS IN THE EAST Segar, who had been put ashore in an apparently dying condition by the captain of the Merchant Royal, on the rather heartless assumption that the man's chances of life were greater on land than on board ship. For eigh- teen months the unfortunate fellow led a Crusoe-like exis^ tence on the island, seeing no human being. When he was found he was apparently in good bodily health, but long isolation from his fellow-men had so weakened his faculties that he was unable to bear the strain of associa- tion with his old messmates. Within a month of leaving St. Helena he died, a victim to excessive joy, if Barker's theory is correct. The history of the Edward Bonaventure after leaving St. Helena was unfortunate. Lancaster, instead of pro- ceeding home, went off to the West Indies in search, it would seem, of further adventures. His crew, who had had more than their fill of this roving life, mutinied, but were afterwards brought sufficiently into submission to enable Lancaster to go on a cruise ofi the Gulf of Mexico. In November, 1593, the Edward Bonaventure was driven ashore on one of the islands in that region, and was there abandoned. Lancaster and his principal lieutenant, Barker, took passage home in a French ship which, for- tunately fof them, was anchored at one of the islands in the vicinity of the wreck. Ultimately they landed at Rye on May 24, 1594, after an absence from their native country of more than three years. To a great extent the voyage had been a disastrous one. Two of the largest vessels were lost, only a miserable rem- nant of the crews originally embarked on the fleet lived to return to England, and apart from a comparatively small sum which Lancaster obtained by trafficking in the THE DAWN OF THE EMPIRE 29 West Indies with the despoiled cargo of the captured Portuguese galleon there was nothing to show for the con- siderable outlay on the venture. The only substantial asset was a fund of experience of Eastern navigation, which, however valuable from the larger standpoint of national commercial development was of small account in the calculations of merchants seeking a profitable new field for the utilization of their capital. Still, the spirit of enterprise in England at that period was such that men were found ready to employ Lancaster afresh in a specula- tive undertaking overseas. Only five months after he had returned from the Eastern voyage we find him once more on his native element, the commander of a new fleet of three vessels equipped for a perilous foray on the Por- tuguese possessions in South America. The aggregate tonnage of this little squadron did not reach 500, yet such was the spirit of the man and his fine contempt for the Portuguese that he made directly for the Brazilian port of Pernambuco, which was then one of the chief centres of Portuguese trade in the West and as such heavily fortified. By a display of cool daring and resourcefulness which was proof alike against the feeble defensive measures and the crooked diplomacy of the local Portuguese authorities he compelled the submission of Recife, the port of Pernam- buco, extracted a heavy ransom in the shape of treasure and goods, and with heavily laden ships made for home, arriving at Blackwall in July, 1595. It was a purely piratical expedition which cannot be justified on any modern principle, but the Elizabethan age was not a fastidious one in these matters. In the then near past the country had suffered grievous wrongs at the hands of both Portugal and Spain. For long years the nation 30 EARLY ENGLISH ADVENTURERS IN THE EAST writhed under them with only occasional opportunities for reprisals. Now that the opening of the seas had given the opportunity of hitting back effectively neither the Government nor the common people was disposed to look too critically upon exploits which, besides paying off old scores, brought a refreshing stream of wealth in their train. So the indignant protests which in due course came from the peninsula were drowned in a chorus of popular acclama- tion amid which Lancaster retired for a period to the back- ground to enjoy a well earned respite from active command. Meanwhile, the old idea of commercial expansion in the East was quietly fermenting in the mind of the merchant class, which in the closing years of the sixteenth century had become perhaps more powerful than at any previous period in English history. The formation of the English Turkey Company in 1579 had opened up an avenue of independent trade with the near East, to the immense widening of the knowledge of the countries of Asia. Constantinople was then one of the principal emporiums of the globe. Into its portals came caravans from all parts of Asia, bearing the products of the looms of Persia, India and China, and the spices of the remoter regions of the Eastern seas. The great world of the Orient, which had hitherto been known in Britain mainly through the refracted medium of Venetian, and Spanish and Portuguese eyes, now became more or less familiar by the direct narra- tives of Englishmen who had entered the East by its Mediterranean door. As early as 1583 five Englishmen, Ralph Fitch, James Newberry, J. Eldred, W. Leedes, and J. Story, started out from Tripolis in Syria on a tour in Asia, which even to-day would be considered remarkable. From Tripolis they pro- THE DAWN OF THE EMPIRE 31 ceeded to Aleppo and thence by caravan to a town on the Euphrates. They travelled down the Euphrates to the head of the Persian Gulf, where Eldred left the party. Fitch, with his three companions, afterwards went to Ormuz, where the Portuguese, who wanted no poachers on their preserves, promptly clapped the party in prison. Eventually they were shipped off to Goa to be dealt with by the Viceroy, whose seat of authority was at the Western India port. They continued in captivity until the end of the year when Story, having appealed to the local author- ities in a tender place by turning monk, secured the release of the entire party. Two sureties had to be found for the good behaviour of the wanderers, and these were forth- coming in the persons of two Jesuits, one of whom, it is interesting to note, was Thomas Stevens, of New College, Oxford, who arrived in Goa by way of the Cape in 1579, and consequently was probably the first Englishman who ever visited India. Newberry settled down in Goa, but Fitch and Leedes, finding the life of the Portuguese city irksome, contrived to escape into native territory. After various vicissitudes Leedes took service under the Great Mogul and disappears from history at the court of that monarch. Fitch con- tinued his travels, visiting in turn Ceylon, Bengal, Pegu, Siam, Malacca and other parts of Malaya. He returned home overland in April, 1591, after an odyssey which had brought him into contact with many of the centres of Eastern life from the Mediterranean to the China Sea. An account written by Fitch of his prolonged wander- ings is to be found in the useful pages of Hakluyt. It is a matter-of-fact narrative in which the utilitarian rather than the romantic side of the tour is presented. As a 32 EARLY ENGLISH ADVENTURERS IN THE EAST merchant Fitch wrote for merchants, and he did not write in vain.' His information about the trade of the many Asiatic lands that he had visited aroused an interest in commercial development in the East which penetrated to every class of Society. Fitch himself must have been an interesting figure in the little world in which he moved in the years immediately following his return from his travels. It is quite con- ceivable that at some time or another he met- Shakespeare on terms of friendly intimacy. London then was quite a small place, not much more extensive than the " one square mile " which constitutes the City of London as we know it to-day. At its wine shops over the cup of sack or Gascony the citizens of the time were wont to discuss the latest news which filtered in from abroad and to listen to the experiences of those who had first-hand knowledge of foreign lands., The great dramatist, ever on the look- out for local colour, would have quickly discovered Fitch and drawn upon his vast store of out of the way knowledge for those wonderful studies of human nature which still hold a unique place in the world's literature. There is, at all events, a direct suggestion that Shakespeare was well acquainted with Fitch's story in the passage in Act I, scene 3 of Macbeth, where a character is made to say " Her husband to Aleppo gone, master of the Tiger" It was the Tiger on which Fitch and his companions voyaged to the Eastern Mediterranean, and it was at Aleppo, as has already been stated, that they disembarked prepara- tory to commencing their Asiatic wanderings. The com- mercial significance of Fitch's travels, however, completely overshadows any literary interest that they may possess. His narrative lifted the veil on the mysterious East, if less THE DAWN OF THE EMPIRE 33 dramatically than Drake and Cavendish's voyages had done, with far greater effect. The best markets were indi- cated, the profits to be made there were set forth with the precision of an expert, and, above all, the truth was em- phasized that to the bold and strong there were great possibilities in the regions in which the Portuguese and the Spaniards and, as regards Persia and the nearer East, the Venetians had previously exercised a practical mono- poly. Lancaster's unfortunate voyage, which followed almost immediately upon Fitch's return, rather damped the ardour of the mercantile classes for Eastern adventures, more especially as an expedition sent out to China in 1596, under the command of Captain Benjamin Wood, also ended in disaster ; but the setback was only temporary. As time went by, interest was re-kindled by evidence which came to hand, notably from the English ambassador at the Spanish Court, of the splendid field which was ready for the occupation of English merchants in the countries of the Orient. A decisive turn was given to the arguments in favour of a further effort to tap the Eastern markets when the news reached England in 1597 of the remarkable success of the voyage made to the East by a fleet of Dutch ships under the command of Cornelius Houtman. This expedition, which laid the foundation of Dutch power in the Eastern Archipelago, carried a warning for England which was not to be disregarded. On all hands it was recognized that the time had come for English merchants to secure a share of the Eastern trade if they were not to be altogether supplanted by their energetic Dutch rivals. The closing years of the sixteenth century were a period of energetic preparation and eager anticipation in London c 34 EARLY ENGLISH ADVENTURERS IN THE EAST mercantile circles. Out of this travail was born with the new century the historic East India Company, an institution which, beyond any other purely private organization, in the centuries following moulded the destinies of the British Empire. CHAPTER II How Lancaster initiated the Eastern Trade Formation of the East India Company Elizabeth grants a charter Sir Edmund Michelborne and Lancaster rivals for the com- mand of the Company's first expedition The latter appointed John Davis of Sundridge proceeds with the fleet Arrival of the expedition at Acheen Favourable reception by the King Portuguese opposition Successful raid on Portuguese shipping by Lancaster Farewell interview with the King The fleet visits Bantam and returns home Successful results of the voyage IT is fair to surmise that when the plain London citizens who were the principal moving spirits in the formation of the East India Company sat down to draw up a scheme for their organization they had only a dim perception of the character of the enterprise upon which they were embarked. Their last thought probably was political aggrandisement and territorial sovereignty. Their calcu- lations were in terms of the ledger and their ambitions took shape in the phrases of the letter book. To buy in the cheapest market and sell in the dearest was their guid- ing principle. Yet that is not to say that no higher motive than a so-did love of gain mingled in the alloy of their project. The Elizabethan spirit of ardent patriotism, expressed largely in a hatred of Spain and Portugal as the 35 36 EAKLY ENGLISH ADVENTURERS IN THE EAST chosen instruments of Rome, though not at the white heat of a decade earlier, still burned with steady brilliancy in the Englishman's breast. It was peculiarly a beacon light in the City of London, where more than elsewhere in the country, perhaps, there was a clearer appreciation of all that an independent England implied in the material sphere and where intimate contact with the Court lent a natural breadth and spaciousness to men's views on exter- nal politics. In such an environment there would naturally be a full recognition of the fact that the religious phase of the struggle which had ended so decisively in 1588 needed a further effort for the vindication of the nation's rights to a trade which would not be fettered by the arbitrary decrees of a hated foreign ascendancy. To the English mercantile community the mere assertion of a right to monopolize the trade of the East on the part of Portugal and Spain appeared as an affront to the dignity of the country which must be met by effectual steps to establish a distinctively English trade in the prohibited regions. Thus reasoning they brought to their practical deliberations a spirit of patriotic zeal which had its in- fluence in shaping the enterprise and giving to it the national character it ultimately largely assumed. Few of those busy city men whose hurrying feet on week days re-echo through the dingy purlieus of Founder's Court in Lothbury, in the heart of the City of London, are aware that within a few yards of that spot was witnessed the birth of the organization which established the founda- tions of British power in the East. The old Founder's Hall, which was the cradle of the mighty British Indian Empire, went the way of many other famous buildings in the Great Fire of London, but the tradition remains, HOW LANCASTER INITIATED EASTERN TRADE 37 and this stuffy little alley will always be a hallowed spot to all Britons who find inspiration in the memories of the past. The beginnings of this enterprise had a strangely modem character. Just as to-day when some great national effort is to be made the initial step is a meeting of person- ages of influence presided over by the Lord Mayor, so on a late September day in 1599 a gathering of leading merchants and men of light and leading in Court circles assembled in Founder's Hall, with the chief magistrate of the year Sir Stephen Soame in the chair, to give public sanction to the project for establishing trade relations with the East. Zeal for the undertaking must have run high, for the subscription list which emanated from the meeting reached a total of 30,000 a very large sum for those none too affluent times. Subsequently the amount was raised to 72,000. With this solid backing the adventurers approached Elizabeth with a formal application for a charter of in- corporation. George, Earl of Cumberland, headed the signatories to the petition, who were 215 in number and included, in addition to many influential merchants, a substantial body of noblemen and personages of distinction in the public life of the country. The Queen, whose spirit of adventure was still active in spite of advancing years and infirmities, had no difficulty in acceding to a request so thoroughly in harmony with the traditions of her reign. On January 24, 1600, letters patent were issued to " the Governor and Company of the Merchants of London trad- ing to the East Indies " authorizing them to carry on their operations, and approving their choice of James Lancaster to act as their " Governor and General " in the " 38 EARLY ENGLISH ADVENTURERS IN THE EAST particular enterprise upon which they were about to embark. Lancaster's selection for the supreme office, though plainly indicated by his skill as a seaman and his excep- tional knowledge of the region which the promoters had marked out for their operations, was not made without a struggle. He had a rival, a rather formidable one, in Sir Edward Michelborne, a gentleman adventurer who had served under the Earl of Essex in the Island Voyage of 1597, and who, possessing Court influence, was strongly recommended for the position by the Lord Treasurer. The shrewd city merchants in whose hands the arrangements for the voyage were placed, with a lively recollection pro- bably of Fenton's disastrous enterprise, declined to enter- tain the proposal on the sensible ground that the business in hand was more suitable for one of their own class than for a Court favourite. Michelborne was so incensed at the decision that he declined to pay the subscription for which he had made himself responsible, and his name was in consequence removed from the Company's roll. We shall meet him again a prominent actor on the stage of Eastern adventure, but for the time being be may be allowed to drop into the background nursing his grievance. The discriminating care which was shown by the direc- tors in their choice of a commander was reflected in the other arrangements for the voyage and notably in the selection of men for the subordinate commands. By far the most famous of these lieutenants of Lancaster was John Davis, of Sundridge, in Devon, the brilliant navigator whose name will ever be associated with the efforts made in the latter part of the sixteenth century to discover a North- West passage to India. Sir Clements Markham, in HOW LANCASTER INITIATED EASTERN TRADE 39 his introduction to the volume of Davis's Voyages in the Hakluyt Society's publications, states that " as a seaman combining scientific knowledge and skilled pilotage with the qualities of a fearless and determined explorer John Davis stands foremost among the navigators of the great Queen." This reputation was earned by an almost con- tinuous service at sea from the day in 1585 when he sailed on his first voyage of discovery to the frozen North. Three separate expeditions were conducted by him in this direc- tion, and he served besides with the Earl of Cumberland off the Azores in 1585 and with Cavendish on his voyage to the South Seas in 1591. But the achievement which helped to recommend him most to the promoters of the enterprise with which we are dealing was the successful piloting of the Dutch Admiral Houtman's fleet on its memorable voyage to the East in 1597. His appointment on that occasion was due to the recommendation of the Earl of Essex, and there was afterwards a suspicion on the part of the Dutch that he had been sent by his noble patron to spy upon their movements. It is an unworthy suggestion, not supported by the smallest evidence. Davis discharged his duties to his Dutch employers honourably and well. It was, indeed, largely to his bravery and re- sourcefulness that the ship in which he sailed was saved from capture on the occasion of a treacherous attack made upon it off Acheen, in Sumatra. His narrative of Hout- man's voyage, which is the classic account of that under- taking, represents him as a shrewd and intelligent observer, as a seaman wedded to his profession and as a man zealous for the reputation of the Western races. Five ships composed the fleet which Lancaster had under his command. They were not in any sense homogeneous, 40 EARLY ENGLISH ADVENTURERS IN THE EAST being in fact a miscellaneous collection of vessels acquired from various quarters. The largest ship the admiral's was the Mare Scourge of 600 tons, which was built by the Earl of Cumberland for the special purpose of cruising against the Spaniards, and which was bought from him by the adventurers for 3,700. Re-christened the Red Dragon it took its place at the head of the line, a taut and seaworthy craft enough, but one which was perhaps better adapted by its construction for work in the colder latitudes of the north than for tropical navigation. A picture of this vessel has come down to us. Its outlines are familiar from the reproductions of the famous Armada tapestries, which were not the least of the treasures which perished in the fire which destroyed the old Houses of Parliament. The enormously high stern, with its ornate poop suggestive of quite spacious cabin accommodation, the low waist and the narrow jutting prow, with its elaborate figure-head, are features which we recognize as characteristic of the Eliza- bethan " sea scourge." Next in point of size to the Red Dragon was the Hector, of 300 tons, then the Ascension, of 260 tons, followed by the Susan, of 240 tons, with the little Guest, of 130 tons, in the wake, discharging the role of a victualling ship. The lading of the ships was a matter of careful forethought. A mixed cargo of iron, wrought and unwrought, lead, Devonshire kersies of all cotton and Norwich woollen goods, was embarked with a variety of articles which were thought to be suitable for presentation to native poten- tates. Merchants were allotted to each vessel to take charge of the goods on the voyage and superintend their sale at the Eastern ports. The better to promote the enter- prise Lancaster was entrusted with six letters from Queen HOW LANCASTER INITIATED EASTERN TRADE 41 Elizabeth for presentation to Asiatic princes in whose dominions he might find himself. The communications were identical in terms, and there was a blank left for the name of the royal recipient to be filled in. As a final touch to the equipment each unit of the fleet was provided with twelve streamers, two flags and one ancient, so that on ceremonial occasions there might be a fitting display of decorative bunting. The flag flown in the place of honour was the broad cross of St. George. More than a hundred years were to elapse before the first Union flag appeared in the Company's vessels and twice that length of time ere the Union Jack was hoisted on them. On a cold dull day in 1601 the five ships, which had been anchored off Woolwich, dropped down the river on their eventful voyage. Contrary winds were encountered, so that some weeks elapsed before those on board caught what was, for many of them, their last glimpse of the white cliffs of England. A successful run was made as far as the coast of Guinea, where there was a diversion in the shape of the capture of a Portuguese vessel which had the ill fate to sail into the track of the fleet. From her hold were taken 146 butts of wine Canary.no doubt and 176 jars of oil, with sundry hogsheads and casks of meal. From Africa Lancaster stood over to the coast of Brazil to catch the favouring trade wind which he hoped to find to help him on his voyage. When off Cape St. Augustine on July 20 the Guest was dismantled and abandoned. The step was rendered necessary by the ravages of the dread scurvy, which had decimated the crews of some of the ves- sels. A course was now laid for the Cape, but baffling winds so delayed the fleet that it was not until September 9 that the shelter of Table Bay was reached. None too soon 42 EARLY ENGLISH ADVENTURERS IN THE EAST did the vessels drop anchor in this veritable harbour of refuge. As the ships had progressed on the voyage the scurvy had tightened its terrible grip on the unfortunate crews. On the Hector, the Susan and the Ascension, the conditions were such that there were not enough men to do the routine duties of the ships, and Lancaster had to send his own men on board to furl the sails. The Red Dragon had enjoyed a practical immunity from sickness, for the simple reason that Lancaster had taken a supply of lemon water on board and had served it out regularly to his men. He must have understood its qualities as an anti-scorbutic, but the full value of the fruit can hardly have been realized, for the melancholy tale of disease continued long years after this period. It was often at or near the Cape that the fell malady reached its highest point of destructive energy. Out of that circumstance probably grew the grisly tradition of the Carlmilhan, the phantom ship which in the watches of the night appeared with its ghastly crew lying prone in agonized attitudes about its decks or hanging in the awful realism of death over the bulwarks to carry terror into the minds of the superstitious seamen. The history of the sea at this period has, at all events, a number of well accredited cases in which an entire crew perished, and the vessel, deprived of intelligent direction, was carried aimlessly about until some day the pitiful truth was revealed to a passing ship which had put off to ascertain the character of the derelict. Not without cause, indeed, was the great African promontory given in the first instance the designa- tion Cape of Torments. The horrors of one of the most painful of diseases were there associated with Nature's elemental manifestations in their most terrifying aspect, HOW LANCASTER INITIATED EASTERN TRADE 43 while the changed character of the heavens the fading out of the old constellations and the appearance of new ones seemed to give a further and sinister significance to portents already big with the decrees of Fate. We catch something of the relief with which this dreaded region was left behind in the increased liveliness of the narrative of Lancaster's voyage as the vessels approach the Indian Ocean. But death still dogged the course of the fleet. At Madagascar there expired on the Red Dragon " the master's mate, the preacher and the surgeon with some ten other common men," and as the captain of the Ascension was going ashore in his boat to the funeral of the departed he and his boatswain's mate, who accompanied him, were slain by a shot from one of the guns fired as a ceremonial salute in accordance with the custom followed on such occasions. " So they that went to see the burial were both buried there themselves." The narrator adds that those who succumbed at Madagascar " mostly died of the flux, which in our opinion came with the waters we drank " a highly probable circumstance. Quitting Madagascar, Lancaster steered directly for the Straits of Malacca. Assisted by the favouring south-west monsoon he made a good passage to Acheen, off which port his fleet dropped anchor on June 5. In selecting this spot he no doubt followed the advice of Davis, whose ex- perience with Houtman's fleet taught him that this was one of the most important centres of the spice trade, which was then, to a large extent, the staple Eastern commodity. The capture of a share of this trade was the primary object of the expedition. An immediate effect of the Dutch intrusion into the East had been to raise the price of Indian, pepper in the English market from 3*. to 8s. per pound, and there was, therefore, a very strong reason for estab- lishing at the earliest moment independent relations with the chief sources of supply. Acheen, on the north-east coast of Sumatra, is chiefly familiar to the present generation as the scene of an ap- parently unending war between the Dutch and the local Malay power, arising out of the unwillingness of the natives to accept the yoke imposed permanently upon them by the arrangement made between Great Britain and Holland nearly a century ago, under which, roughly speaking, British rights in Sumatra were renounced in exchange for a like renunciation on the part of the Dutch Government of any title to Singapore or to political influence in the Peninsular States. But many years before that struggle commenced long, indeed, before Europeans appeared in force in theEast Acheen had been an important commercial centre by reason of its strategic position at the northern end of the Straits of Malacca and its proximity to the prin- cipal spice-growing districts in that region. The Dutch had thought so well of it that they had promptly estab- lished a factory there, and amongst the first to welcome Lan- caster were two Hollanders, who had been left behind to look after the Dutch interests. From them Lancaster learned not only that the King was well disposed to strangers, but that he held in especial estimation the English, on account of their great victory over the Spaniards in the Armada fight, about which he appeared to be well informed. The course of events showed that the Dutch visitors to the English fleet had not exaggerated the impression made upon this distant Eastern potentate's mind by the memor- able conflict of 1588. Curiosity, mingled no doubt with a feeling of self-interest, prompted him to receive with open HOW LANCASTER INITIATED EASTERN TRADE 45 arms the representatives of a power which had successfully combated a nation in intimate alliance with the Portuguese, whose might had wrested from the Malays the principal seat of their power and whose heavy hand had been for generations oppressively felt throughout the length and breadth of the Straits and the islands of the Eastern seas wherever members of the Malay race were settled. Whatever his motives, his reception of Lancaster was princely. When the English commander landed on the third day after his arrival the King sent to the landing-place " great elephants with many drums, trumpets and streamers with much people " to escort him to Court. The biggest of the elephants was about thirteen or fourteen feet high and " had a small castle like a coach upon its back covered with crimson velvet. In the middle thereof was a great bason of gold and a piece of silk exceedingly richly wrought to cover it." This contrivance was thoughtfully furnished to provide a suitable depository for Elizabeth's letter. There the precious missive was accordingly put with due ceremony. Lancaster himself took his place in stately isolation upon another of the huge animals with running footmen on each side. In this imposing way he and his personal escort of thirty men made their way through streets packed with an eager wondering crowd to the palace. On the arrival of the party at the palace the King ten- dered the Englishmen a welcome which was almost effu- sively courteous. Probably he had foreknowledge of the presents which were on the way to him from the royal Elizabeth. Nothing, at all events, was allowed to delay the important ceremony of their presentation. The King had no reason to complain of either the attractiveness or the 46 EAKLY ENGLISH ADVENTUREKS IN THE EAST intrinsic value of the gifts. They included " a bason of silver with a fountain in the midst of it weighing 205 ounces, a great standing cup of silver, a rich looking-glass and headpiece with a plume of feathers, a case of very fine daggers, a rich wrought embroidered belt to hang a sword on, and a fan of feathers." The King immediately pounced upon the fan, " and caused one of his women to fan him therewithall, as a thing that most pleased him of all the rest." Later the visitors were entertained at a ban- quet, where they ate off plates of precious metal and were entertained with dancing damsels, " richly attired and adorned with bracelets and jewels." Finally, Lancaster and his chief lieutenants were invested with robes of honour and equipped each with a kris, the Malay dagger, which is a symbol of authority. In this honorific fashion they were dismissed to their ships. The Elizabethen letter, which with so much ceremony had been conveyed to the Acheen prince, [was a highly characteristic effusion embodying the royal sentiments as to the establishment of a trade connexion with the English Company. She promised the King that he should be very well served and better contented than he had pre- viously been with the Portugals and Spaniards, the enemies of England, who " only and none else of these regions," the Queen went on to say, " have frequented those your, and the other kingdoms of the East : not suffering that the other nations should doe it, pretending themselves to be monarchs and absolute lords of all these kingdoms and provinces as their own conquest and inheritance as appeareth by their lofty title in their writings." Then came the pith of the document an application for a site for a factory .and for protection for those who might be left to manage it. HOW LANCASTER INITIATED EASTERN TRADE 47 The note struck by the Queen's disdainful sentences about Portuguese and Spanish pretensions awakened a congenial echo in the heart of the Malay prince, who had only too good cause to appreciate their truth. But, though all graciousness about the desirability of an alliance with so high and mighty a potentate as Elizabeth, he was in no hurry to make the definite concession which was asked. The proposal was referred by him for consideration to two of his principal officials " one the chief bishop of the realm and the other a member of the ancient nobility." Meanwhile the Englishmen were granted a general freedom to trade a favour which, while it committed the King to nothing, was calculated to enrich his coffers both directly and indirectly. Lancaster speedily found that trading at Acheen, on anything like profitable terms, was practically impossible. He had been led by Davis to expect that he would be able to purchase pepper the staple commodity at a price of four Spanish reals of eight the hundred pounds weight, but the actual cost was about five times that sum. In the circumstances, it is not surprising that he " grew daily full of thought how he should lade his ships." To increase his perplexities a Portuguese ambassador appeared on the scene, primed with instructions to do his best to defeat the Englishmen's schemes. His first move was to make a bold demand to the King for a factory and for a site for a fort at the entrance to the river for its security. The insolence of the request aroused the ire of the prince. Addressing the Portuguese envoy, according to the nar- Tator of Lancaster's voyage, he said : " Hath your master a daughter to give that he is so careful of the preservation of my country ? He shall not need to be at so great a 48 EARLY ENGLISH ADVENTURERS IN THE EAST charge as the building of a fort, for I have a fit house about two leagues from the city which I will spare him for a fac- tory where his people shall not need to fear enemies, for I will protect them." The royal sarcasm hit its mark. The Portuguese am- bassador retired in dudgeon to concoct new plans for the discomfiture of the hated English. From this point the struggle became a contest of wits between the wily Portuguese on the one hand and the blufE Englishman on the other, with the Kina in the background an interested and gleeful spectator of the combat. Lan- caster's early association with the Portuguese and his perfect knowledge of their ways gave him an immense initial advantage in the conflict. He knew that it was no good wasting time in attempting to counter intrigues on the spot, the ramifications of which, in the absence of local experience, he would be powerless to follow. For him, situated as he was, the line to take was the bold one of carrying the war into the enemy's country in other words, to raid the Portuguese shipping in the Straits. He was the more disposed to adopt this course because of the now obvious impossibility of obtaining a cargo on reasonable terms. But though he saw his plan of campaign plainly marked out he only too clearly realized that if the Portu- guese envoy left a warning would be given to Portuguese shipping, and he would have but small chance of making any valuable captures. After thinking the matter over he decided to enlist the aid of the King in furthering his projects. As events proved this was an easy matter. The prince had formed a great liking for Lancaster. The seaman's frank, downright manner, with the impression of force of character which was conveyed in his control of HOW LANCASTER INITIATED EASTERN TRADE 49 the men under his command, appealed to the instinctive love of manliness which exists deep down in the Malay mind. There was, too, a community of sentiment in sport, which peeped out when, as often happened, the prince and his guest foregathered over a display of cock-fighting, which is the national pastime of the Malays. So that when the English commander approached the King with a request that he would take measures to detain the Portuguese ambassador until the English ships had got well clear of the port he met with a prompt acquiescence in his scheme. " Well," said the King, and laughed, " thou must bring me a fair Portugall maiden when thou returnest and then I am pleased." No time was lost by Lancaster in putting his plans into execution. A few days later he was at sea, on the look-out for a big Portuguese galleon of whose likely advent he had news from friends in port. She duly appeared on the scene on about the day expected, October 3, making a gallant sight as, with all sails set, she came with a favouring wind down the Straits. The English fleet, immediately on sighting her, stood across to her and on getting into range commenced to fire. The fight was hot until a volley from the Red Dragon brought down the galleon's mainmast and put her out of action. She proved to be an exceedingly rich prize of 900 tons one of the largest ships sailing the seas in those days. Her holds were stuffed full of mer- chandise of all descriptions, and there was found on her besides much valuable loot in the shape of jewels and plate and miscellaneous property. The riches were so extensive, indeed, as almost to be embarrassing. When the holds of the four ships had been filled to the last corner there was still left a residue sufficiently large to cause Lancaster much 50 EARLY ENGLISH ADVENTURERS IN THE EAST perplexed thought as to its disposal. But he was not in the mood to allow any small difficulties to interfere with his thorough enjoyment of the situation in which he now found himself. By a single stroke he had satisfactorily settled what had at one time seemed likely to prove the insoluble problem of how to fill his ships and make the voyage a financial success. That the desired end had been gained by a privateering raid on another power, if it con- cerned him at all, probably added a zest to the memory of his achievement, since by its means he had struck another heavy blow at his ancient enemy. Lancaster now determined to make his way home by way of the Sunda Straits. Experience had shown him that Acheen was a hopeless place for business in present cir- cumstances, and that the real centres of the spice trade was at Priaman to the southward on the eastern coast of Sumatra and at Bantam on the island of Java. It was clearly in this direction that the permanent establishment could be most profitably located, more especially as the .Dutch had made Bantam their headquarters. On his return to Acheen Lancaster sought an audience of the King to announce his decision to leave. The monarch xeceived him jovially. One of his first questions to his visitor was whether he had forgotten the most important business of his recent raid that little affair of the Portuguese maiden. Entering into the spirit of the jest, Lancaster seriously assured his majesty that his wishes would most certainly have been complied with but for one thing, there was no one found to be worthy of the high honour. " Therewithal the King smiled and said, ' If there be anything in my king- dom may pleasure thee I would be glad to gratify thy good will.' " HOW LANCASTER INITIATED EASTERN TRADE 51 A day or two later the formal farewell audience took place. The King handed over to Lancaster his reply to Elizabeth's letter, in which with a wealth of Oriental hyper- bole, he granted freedom of trade to the subjects of " the Sultana who doth rule in the Kingdom of England, France, Ireland, Holland and Friesland," and expressed the wish that the Deity would " continue that Kingdom and Empire long in prosperity." Some presents to accompany this missive were entrusted to Lancaster with a ruby ring for himself. There was then a pause, and Lancaster was about to take his leave when the King broke in with a strange question. " ' Have you the Psalms of David extant among you ? he asked. " The General answered, ' Yea, and we sing them daily.' " Then said the King, ' I and the rest of these nobles about me will sing a Psalm to God for your prosperity,' and so they did it very solemnly. And after it was ended the King said " ' I would hear you sing another Psalm, although in your own language.' " So there being in the company some twelve of us we sung another Psalm and after the Psalm was ended the General took his leave of the King." With this delightful scene Lancaster's sojourn at Acheen may be said to have terminated, for a few hours later he was at sea again. With a passing call at Priaman for a supply of pepper awaiting him there, Lancaster proceeded to Bantam, which port he reached in the early days of December. Bantam, like Acheen, was a small Malay principality, a fragment of the larger sovereignty which once wielded sway over a 52 EARLY ENGLISH ADVENTURERS IN THE EAST considerable part of Malaya. The ruling prince at the time of Lancaster's visit was a lad of ten or eleven years of age. He was, of course, a mere figurehead. The real power was vested in a council of officials, who were as grasping as most Orientals of their class were at that time, but who were sufficiently sensible of the advantages of ex- panded trade to place no direct obstacles in the visitors' way. Many days had not elapsed after the arrival of the English fleet before a position had been occupied ashore and a brisk trade was being done in the commodities with which Lan- caster's ships were laden. At that period, and indeed throughout its history as a European trading centre in the East, the port of Bantam had a very bad reputation for unhealthiness. " That stinking stew " was the phrase applied to it in one of the earliest letters of the English factors, and that the designation was deserved is shown by the terrible mortality lists with which the first records are interspersed. The most prominent of the early vic- tims was John Middleton, Lancaster's second in command, a man of great experience, who, though less known than his brother Henry } who we shall meet with presently in a prominent position, was an equally able and enterprising seaman. Middleton's death warned Lancaster not to linger unduly at Bantam. When, therefore, he had dispatched a pinnace to the Moluccas to open up trade in that quarter and had settled a staff in the factory under William Starkey he on February 20, 1603, sailed for England. The return voyage nearly ended in disaster. In the dreaded region of the Cape the fleet met a terrific storm in which the vessels were battered about for several days with- out intermission. At length the carrying away of the rudder of the Red Dragon appeared to seal the fate of that vessel. HOW LANCASTER INITIATED EASTERN TRADE 53 The Hector stood by the now almost derelict ship with the object of taking off the crew as the occasion might offer. But Lancaster, with the indomitable spirit of a true son of the sea, flatly declined to listen to any suggestion of aban- donment. Proceeding to his cabin he calmly indited a letter to the directors intimating that he would strive to save the ship and goods, but that he could not indicate where they should send a pinnace to look for him as he was at the mercy of the wind and waves. " And thus fare you well (he wrote), desiring God to send us a merry meeting in this world if it be His good will and pleasure. The passage to the East Indies lieth in 62J degrees by the N.W. on the American side." The letter was delivered by some means not disclosed to the Hector with final instructions to ita commander to proceed direct home. Night fell with no mitigation of the storm and with an increase every hour of the peril of the vessel owing to the exhaustion of the crew. When morning broke and the Hector was still visible, not a great distance off, Lancaster uttered an ex- clamation of impatience. " These men regard no com- mission (order)," he said with a frown to the bystanders. But, remarks the writer of the narrative, " the master was an honest and a good man and loved the General well and was loth to leave him in so great distress." Happily about this period the storm moderated sufficiently to allow of a temporary rudder being fixed, and with this device the Red Dragon was enabled to crawl along her course until opportunity permitted of the adjustment of a new rudder. After this no incident of importance occurred to mar the voyage, which may be said to have terminated when the ships dropped anchor in the Downs on September 11, 1603. 54 EARLY ENGLISH ADVENTURERS IN THE EAST Financially the enterprise had been a magnificent success. The fleet brought with it 1,030,000 pounds of pepper, on which there was an enormous profit. Besides this element of gain there were other items which ran the total returns up to a very large sum. But over and above the immediate material benefit which the venture secured was the ex- tremely valuable experience which it afforded of the Eastern, trade. The best course for ships had been discovered, the leading spice markets had been located and tested, know- ledge had been gained of the customs of the native traders and, what was perhaps most important, advertise- ment had been given in a striking form of the fact that England was a competitor in the race for commercial supremacy in Eastern seas. It was natural in such circum- stances that Lancaster's homecoming should have partaken somewhat of the character of the triumphant return of a victorious general, that the populace should have acclaimed him, that the City should have feted him, and that as a coping stone to the pyramid of honour the sovereign should have knighted him. He was completely deserving of these tributes not only because he discharged a difficult enterprise with conscientious thoroughness, but for the reason that he gave an example in leadership and a lesson in patriotism which were followed by those who immediately succeeded him, to the great enhancement of the reputation of his countrymen and to the ultimate glory of the Indian Empire of Britain, which was built on the foundations which he so well and truly laid. CHAPTER HI A Fight to a Finish James I gives Michelborne a licence to trade in the East Michel- borne's voyage to the East with Davis as chief lieutenant Acts of piracy off theJavan coast English ships fall in with a Japanese pirate vessel Sudden attack by the Japanese A terrific combat Davis is slain A happy thought Defeat and extermination of the Japanese Michelborne returns home IN the period of Lancaster's absence on his voyage the great Elizabeth had passed to her rest. Her suc- cessor, James I, was to a certain extent in the position of the king who knew not Joseph. He was not only lacking in his predecessor's enthusiasm for the cause of trade expansion in the East, but his mind failed to grasp the essential conditions on which a policy of the kind could then be successfully prosecuted. On no other basis than as a monopolistic power as the accredited commercial representative of England could the East India Company hope to make good its footing and that of its country in the distant regions of the Orient. Elizabeth fully realized this when she gave the Company its exclusive charter and invested its representative with powers which were hardly to be distinguished from those of an ambassador. James I, on the other hand, appears to have felt that a ship or two in the East more or less did not matter, and that it was for the conflicting interests to fight out their difference* 55 66 EARLY ENGLISH ADVENTURERS IN THE EAST on the spot rather than for him to exercise a restraining influence by withholding his prerogative when new aspirants appeared in the field. It must have been somewhat in this spirit that he selected the time when the East India Company had just dispatched a second fleet to the East to issue a licence to Sir Edward Michelborne " to discover the countries of China and Japan and to trade with their people." The East India Company protested vigorously against this infringement of the spirit if not the letter of their patent, but all in vain, for they had to contend with adverse Court influences which were proof against any representations, however weighty, on the score of expedi- ency or however well grounded in justice. Michelborne's venture was the more formidable by reason of the fact that he had secured the co-operation of John Davis. This worthy returned home from Lancaster's expedition to a certain extent under a cloud. He was thought to have misled the Company, and though there was probably a reasonable explanation in Dutch activity of the failure of Acheen to answer the expectations which he held out in regard to it, he suffered the usual fate of the false prophet ; he was discarded. In Michelborne's expedi- tion he figured in his old role of a pilot, but it may be imagined that he was a good deal more than a simple sailing master. He was as expert in navigation as Michel- borne was deficient in that science, and he had, moreover, an incomparable general knowledge, picked up during his extensive service at sea, which must have made his decision authoritative on most questions of discipline and policy. Regarded as an essay in commercial exploitation in a far distant and little known region the gentleman adven- turer's expedition was of a decidedly unassuming character. A FIGHT TO A FINISH 57 A single ship of 240 tons named the Tiger, and a pinnace, appropriately christened the Tiger's Whelp, comprised his " fleet." The whole might have been stowed away on the deck of a modern Atlantic liner without greatly disturbing the deck arrangements. It was formidable enough, how- ever, to cause a good many heart-searchings in certain quarters when the news of its sailing from Cowes on December 5, 1604, reached the City of London, as it probably did a day or two later. It is unnecessary to follow Michelborne through the various stages of his voyage to the East, which differed little from those which had preceded it. We may take the story up on August 21, 1605, when the Tiger and her consort arrived in the vicinity of Bantam. The appearance at this point of native craft upon the sea seems to have suggested to Michelborne the opportunity for a little indiscriminate piracy. Two prows that were overhauled yielded nothing but a small quantity of rice. On boarding one of them, under the impression that the crew had escaped, two of the sailors from the Tiger were grievously wounded by two natives who were lying hidden and who, as soon as the Englishmen set foot in the craft, attacked them with their krises inflicting terrible injuries, thereafter leaping overboard and " swimming away like water spaniels." A day or two later a Bantam ship was overhauled and dismissed, apparently because she had on board nothing worth the taking. Still later a more promis- ing capture was made in the shape of an Indian ship of some eighty tons, laden with a miscellaneous cargo. She was taken into Sillebar, a port in Sumatra, and ransacked with a fine disregard for all laws of right and justice. As no further opening for plunder appeared to offer, Michelborne 58 EARLY ENGLISH ADVENTURERS IN THE EAST made for Bantam, off which port he anchored some time in November. As news of the exploits of the Tiger had preceded her it was natural that her welcome was not effusive. Some Englishmen from the local factory who came aboard told them the stories that were current as to their charac- ter. The Hollanders, who were most active in circulating the " slanders " as they were rather whimsically regarded by Michelborne, represented the members of the ex- pedition as a body of " disordinate livers," who only wanted the opportunity to perpetrate the worst acts of violence. In a fine frenzy of indignation the gentleman adventurer sent a message to the Dutch ships then in port that he would weigh anchor and ride close by them with the intent that they might attack him if they dared. He gave notice that if one piece of ordnance was put out he would either sink them or be sunk by their side. Suiting the action to the word, Michelborne shifted his anchorage to the vicinity of the Dutch fleet, which consisted of five ships, one of which was a large vessel of between 700 and 800 tons. But the challenge was not taken up, and according to the veracious chronicler, " 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 we could scarcely see one of them on land." Notwithstanding this bravado, Michelborne found it convenient to make his stay at the Javan port a brief one. On leaving he steered a course for Patani, a port on the eastern coast of the Malay Peninsula, which at that period was a centre of considerable trade. For some days the vessel was becalmed off the island of Banca. To enliven A FIGHT TO A FINISH 5 the monotony and keep up his character for freebooting, Michelborne chased whatever native craft came within easy distance of him. He got very little for his paina because the native crews of the threatened boats, with their intimate knowledge of the coasts, were able to elude their pursuers. At last the spell of inglorious marauding ended in a terrible tragedy which narrowly missed involving the whole expedition in absolute disaster. For days the Tiger had been lying helplessly upon the- water, " a painted ship upon a painted ocean." Hardly a breath of wind stirred to moderate the fierce intensity of the sun which beat with tropical strength upon the decks. The men were lying idly about in the shade of the high bulwarks or hanging listlessly over the sides watching with lack-lustre eyes the adjacent coast of the island of Bintang, which was shimmering in the blue haze of noon- day. Suddenly a cry was raised of a sail. Immediately all was bustle and eager expectancy. The strange craft was too distant to determine her character, but she was evidently more than an ordinary junk. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, the mysterious ship came on until she was near enough for those on board the Tiger to see that her deck waa crowded with men. A boat, heavily armed, was put off from the Tiger and after a parley the Englishmen were admitted on board the stran- ger. She proved to be a Japanese vessel. Her crew, at all events, were of that nation squat-figured deter- mined-looking fellows, with the impassive calm of their race reflected in their features. There were some eighty or ninety of them, and they were manifestly not all sea- men. The garb and bearing of many were indicative of the soldier rather than the sailor. Moreover, they made 60 EARLY ENGLISH ADVENTURERS IN THE EAST no secret that the majority of the party did not usually follow the profession of the sea. What were they then ? The truth soon came out when they were questioned. They were very much what Michelborne and his men were, freebooters who picked up what they could on the ocean highway after " the good old rule, the simple plan " which has been followed by the swashbuckler in all ages. They had left Japan some months previously, had pillaged the coast of China and Cambodia and then crossed to Borneo, where they had discarded their ship in favour of another one they had picked up in the usual way. It was this vessel which they were now navigating back to Japan. The story, told with an entire absence of mauvaise honte, was confirmed by the general appearance of the vessel and the absence of all regular discipline on board. Though one man appeared to have a little more authority than the rest the general rule was plainly one of equality. Michel- borne became sufficiently interested in the stranger to set a party of his men to ransack her hold. The Japanese outwardly showed no resentment of the indignity offered to them. They fraternized with the English seamen, and a party of them sought and obtained permission to inspect the Tiger, which was now immediately along- side. Caution had suggested to Michelborne the desira- bility of disarming the visitors before they were admitted on board. As this measure was at that time always taken at Eastern ports in the case of the Japanese, owing to their notoriously desperate disposition, there would not have been anything remarkable in its introduction in this in- stance. But Davis, to whom the proposal was made, deceived by the appearance of total submission which the Japanese presented, would not be convinced that it was A FIGHT TO A FINISH 61 necessary to put any restraint upon their movements either by way of disarmament or by keeping them " before the mast." It seemed to him absurd to place under sus- picion these eager visitors who, with childlike curiosity, roamed about the ship inspecting its equipment and examining with especial interest the arrangements for the accommodation of the officers and crew. So the day wore on with men coming and going between the two vessels without restraint as the work of unloading the cargo of the captured junk proceeded. There was even a certain amount of friendly intercourse between the two crews, and on the part of the Tiger's officers a display of hospi- tality. Glasses were lifted and eyes spoke apparently cordial sentiments which could not be expressed by the ordinary medium. The prevailing note of the gathering was one of almost idyllic peacefulness. In a twinkling the scene was changed. How it came about no one knew, but before the Englishmen realized it they were fighting for dear life a body of desperadoes of the fiercest type. Those on board the Japanese boat were soon overwhelmed. Taken unawares they had no time to use their arms and were either cut down at once or driven overboard. On the Tiger, owing to the unfamiliarity of the Japanese with the ship, the surprise was less decisive, but the posi- tion was, nevertheless, critical in the extreme. One of the first victims was poor Davis, who was attacked by the ruffians as he was emerging from the gun room. He was slashed and hacked at with knives and swords and was then thrust out on to the waist of the ship, where in a short time he bled to death. Meanwhile, the Tiger's crew, brought to a vivid realization of their peril, had rallied 2 EARLY ENGLISH ADVENTURERS IN THE EAST under Michelborne's leadership and with pikes had ad- vanced to the attack of the Japanese, who were posted in the aft part of the vessel. A furious conflict ensued. The Englishmen with cool determination fell upon their foes, killing and wounding many with the deadly weapons which they knew so well how to handle. On their part the Japanese fought with the frenzy of fiends. Armed with only short swords or knives they were at a serious disadvantage with their antagonists, but nothing daunted they dodged the thrusts and even caught hold of the pikes with one hand and lunged at their holders with their swords in frantic efforts to kill them. For some minutes this combat went on, each party realizing that it was a fight to the death or nothing. Gradually the superior weight and steadiness of the Englishmen told. Inch by inch the Japanese were driven down the deck, until at length they were near the entrance of the cabin. Then with a shriek of baffled rage they gave way and rushed pell-mell into the interior of the vessel. To follow them would have meant certain death for the first who entered ; it was doubtful whether an -attack at close quarters could be made at all with success. What was to be done ? For some time the Englishmen deliberated without seeing any solution of the problem. At length the happy thought occurred to some one to assail the refuge of the miscreants with ordnance. The idea was promptly acted on. Two demi-culvcrins (32 pounders) were loaded with bullets, case shot and pieces of iron and fired pointblank at the exposed side of the cabin. There was a crash and splinter of woodwork, followed by a shriek of mingled defiance and agony from the interior and then was comparative silence. The A FIGHT TO A FINISH 63 volley had effectually done its deadly work. When after an interval the cabin was entered it was found that only one of the party of twenty-two survived. The terribly mangled bodies of the remainder showed the extraordinary destructiveuess of the improvised ammunition. All the time that this bloody contest was proceeding on the Tiger the Japanese on the junk were, as far as opportunity offered, placed under fire. The punishment they received, though less awe-inspiring in its aspect of concentrated horror, was equally decisive. All suggestions of quarter made from the Tiger were scornfully rejected. The desperadoes, with a courage which extorted the ad- miration of their foes, elected to continue the hopeless fight to the bitter end. One by one they were shot down, until the battered hulk no longer resounded with the fierce cries of defiance of its defenders. Of the entire band one n by an incident which caused him momentarily great mortification. In the closing months of 1616 a fleet arrived at Surat from England bearing with it a batch of new presents for the Emperor. After some delay they were despatched to Mandu in the charge of the Rev. Edward Terry, who had been sent out to act as chap- lain to Roe. Jehangir, who was always well posted as to the movements of foreign ships, caused the presents to be intercepted before they reached the ambassador, and coolly annexed them. Roe was fired with indignation at so gross an insult, as he conceived it. His anger was the deeper because in order to avoid oppressive dues there had been sent up with the presents sundry silks and velvets which were designed for sale in the ordinary way by the Company's representatives. It would now be necessary for him to explain the ruse in order to obtain possession of the goods. Roe appears to have lost no time in submitting a pro- test against the interception of the presents. The account of his audience with Jehangir on the subject is most amusing reading. Jehangir, in reply to the remonstrance, told Roe that he " should not be sad or grieved that he had his choice, for that he had no patience to forbear seeing the presents." He did Roe no wrong and as for the King of England he AN IMPERIAL DESPOT IN DRESS AND UNDRESS 155 would make him satisfaction. The prince (Khurrum), Noor Mahal, and he, he added, were all one, and as for bringing him anything to procure his favour, it was a ceremony and unnecessary, for he would at all times hear Roe : he would be welcome empty-handed, for his poverty would not be his fault. He concluded by saying that Roe should not be angry as he meant well. During the imperial harangue Roe maintained a stolid silence that was more eloquent than words. As he con- tinued silent, Jehangir directly asked him whether he was pleased or not. Thus challenged, Roe diplomatically replied that his Majesty's content pleased him. At this juncture, seeing Terry, who had accompanied Roe, Jehangir called to him " Padre, you are very welcome, and this house is yours and esteeme it so : whensoever you desire to come to me it shall be free to you and whatsoever you require of me I will grant you." After this digression, Jehangir turned again to the ques- tion of the presents and adroitly extracted an assent from Roe to his act of misappropriation by enumerating each article and asking whether he would wish to have it back. First there were the dogs, the cushions and the barber's case, he (the Emperor) was delighted with them. They need not be returned ? Roe, of course, could only answer, " No." Then, continued the Emperor, there were two clothes chests, " very mean and ordinary," for whom were they ? He was told that one was intended for himself and the othei for Noor Mahal. "Why then," said he, "you will not ask for that I have, being contented with one." 156 EARLY ENGLISH ADVENTURERS IN THE EAST " I was forced to yield," writes Roe. Next Jehangir demanded to know who the hats were for ; his women liked them, he added. Roe answered that three were sent to his Majesty and the fourth was his (Roe's) own to wear. " Ah," said Jehangir, " then you will not take them from me, for I like them, and yours I will return if you need it and will not bestow it on me." What could Roe do but put a smiling face upon the loss of his hat ? A picture representing Venus and a satyr provided material for more dangerous controversy. From what Roe says it seems that Jehangir[suspected that the allegory of the picture was directed against Asiatics, the satyr, with its dark-coloured complexion, being a repulsive embodi- ment of the race, while the fair Venus was presumably the spirit of the West, shown leading the ogre of the East in bondage. " What was the meaning of the picture ? " he asked. Neither Roe nor Terry could satisfy him on the point. Nevertheless, he annexed the picture with the rest. Anon he turned his attention to " some carved animal figures, very ridiculous and ill-shaped ordinary figures, the varnish off and no beauty." What were they sent for ? " I was really ashamed," wrote Roe, " and answered it was not my fault ; those that seized them must bear the brunt ; but that they were not intended for him, but sent to show the forms of beasts with us." Jehangir replied quickly " Did you think in England that a horse and bull were strange to me ? " AN IMPERIAL DESPOT IN DRESS AND UNDRESS 157 Roe replied that he thought not of so mean a matter, and what was in the sender's mind he could not say. " Well," said the King, " I will keep them and only desire you to help me to a horse of the greatest size : it is all I will expect, and a male and female of mastiffs, and the tall Irish greyhounds and such other dogs as hunt in your land, and if you will promise me these I will give you the word of a King, I will fully recompense you and grant all your desires." Roe answered that he would promise to procure the animals, but that he could not guarantee their lives. Upon this Jehangir " gave extraordinary bows, lay'd his hand on his heart and such kinds of gestures as all men will witness he never used to any man, nor such familiarity, nor such freedom, nor profession of love." Roe altogether was royally cozened, and that he had some suspicion of the fact is shown by the statement which follows the complacent sentences quoted : " This was all my recompense, though he often desired me to be merry, (saying) that what wrong he had done me he would royally requite and send me home to my country with grace and reward like a gentleman." Of all the presents that he received from England, Jehangir probably most valued the mastiffs. The fighting qualities of these splendid animals appealed to the sporting instincts which were strong in him, and he doubtless appre- ciated them the more as they contrasted so strikingly with the cowardly disposition of the Indian dog. The two which were sent to Jehangir were the survivors of eight originally shipped. They were despatched up country in little coaches, and on arrival at Mandu were placed each in charge of four attendants. Two of the quartette carried 158 EARLY ENGLISH ADVENTURERS IN THE EAST the dog in a palankeen, to which it was chained, while the other two were told off to keep the flies from the animal with a whisk. In this lordly fashion the canine representa- tives of Old England upheld the dignity of a noble line ; and even the great Jehangir did not consider it beneath him to feed them with his own hands, using for the purpose a pair of silver tongs which had been specially made for that purpose. It was during his sojourn at Mandu that Roe first had the opportunity of witnessing the curious ceremony of weighing the Emperor against gold and other precious materials, which was a characteristic part of the celebra- tion of the Mogul's birthday. On the previous occasion an invitation to attend had missed him, owing to the stupidity of the messenger, but in this instance Jehangir took especial pains to see that the English ambassador was present. Roe found the spectacle as picturesque as imagi- nation could paint it. He saw the Emperor, glittering from head to foot with diamonds and other precious stones used to embellish his person, step into the golden scales, to be weighed six times, first against gold, next against silver and so on. When the last weighing was finished Jehangir ascended his throne and distributed silver almonds, nuts and spices, after the manner previously described. Once more the great men " scrambled prostrate upon their bellies " for the imperial largesse ; once more Roe's dig- nity forbade him to follow their example. The Emperor, seeing that the ambassador did not join in the scrimmage, took a basin and poured the contents into Roe's cloak. Some of the nobles, observing what was happening, held out their hands to intercept the bounteous stream and vthey would have diverted a good part of it had not Roe AN IMPERIAL DESPOT IN DRESS AND UNDRESS 159 protested. At night there was the usual wassail, which Roe was told he must attend, but remembering that their " waters are fire," he stayed at home on the plea of ill- health. In less than a month from this celebration Prince Khur- rum returned in triumph from his campaign in the Deccan. It is a curious example of the irony of history that his father heaped upon him on this occasion the most profuse honours, conferring upon him the title of Shah Jehan (Lord of the World), making him a Mansabdar, with the command of 20,000 horsemen, and yielding to him the right to sit on a chair next to the throne and all this in that same Mandu in which Jehangir, after deposition by the son he now honoured, was to pass the last days of his life a prisoner. Khurrum bore his new honours with the arrogance of a proud nature, and a less skilful student of human nature than Roe would have paid assiduous court to him. But the ambassador knew from his experience of Orientals that the very worst course he could pursue would be to pander to the great man. The line he took towards him was, if anything, a trifle more independent than that he had followed in the days when the prince's star was by no means in the ascendant. In accordance with established etiquette he rode to the Prince's tent a few days after the triumphal entry to tender his congratulations. The prince sent out word to him that he must eithei attend the next morning, when he sat in durbar, or stay until his riding to Court, a course which would have entailed the necessity of Roe hanging about the door of the tent for a considerable time. " This," writes Roe, " I took in extreme scorn, his father 160 EAKLY ENGLISH ADVENTUKERS IN THE EAST never denying me access ; and his pride is such as may teach Lucifer ; which made me answer roundly I was not his slave, but a free ambassador of a king, and that I would never more visit him or attend him. He had refused me justice, but at night I would see him with the King, to whom only I would address myself, and so departed." Bold words these even for an ambassador to utter to a man of Prince Khurrum's status, especially in his hour of favour. But Roe at the time had in reserve a weapon which he knew he could use with telling effect in any subse- quent phase of the dispute. He had heard the previous day of the arrival at Swally of a new fleet, bringing with it, of course, a fresh batch of presents. Jehangir's almost childish craving for novelties might be relied on, he no doubt thought, to smooth matters for him in the prince's direction. Not, we may imagine, without a twinkle of triumph in his eye, Roe attended the imperial durbar that evening. As he passed the prince he saluted him respectfully, but Khurrum treated him with disdainful indifference. Then turning to the Emperor, Roe told him of the fleet's arrival and asked his commands in regard to the presents. All eagerness at the news, Jehangir demanded what had been brought. He was given a list of the articles, and was so pleased, especially with some arras which had been im- ported for him, that he promised Roe all favours and privi- leges that he might desire. The coup was so far successful, but Roe did not intend to trust over-much to his imperial patron's sense of honour. For the time being he determined to have the presents kept in safe custody at Surat, the only exception being some rather remarkable pearls one being " shaped like a pear, very large, beautiful and orient," AN IMPERIAL DESPOT IN DRESS AND UNDRESS 161 which he gave orders should be transmitted by special messenger. The jewels thus withdrawn from the ordinary stock of presents Roe knew would supply powerful leverage for the execution of his designs. But he probably little suspected at the outset how valuable they would prove. At the period, Asaf Khan and Noor Mahal had fallen out with Khurrum, chiefly owing to the latter's refusal to wed the Empress's daughter by her first husband. This was a match upon which the ambitious Noor Mahal had set her heart, mainly because she hoped by its means to continue in a new reign, if one were entered upon, the extraordinary influence she had wielded in Jehangir's time. Prince Khurrum's uncompromising attitude on the subject, dic- tated by his love for Mumtaz Mahal, a devotion which inspired the construction of the glorious Taj, had convinced the exalted intriguers that it would be folly to base their hopes on the Prince. They realized that they must make other plans, and they had already fixed on Prince Shariyar, a younger son of Jehangir, as a suitable subject for the promotion of their designs, when Prince Khurrum's return from the war with an enormously increased prestige added a fresh incentive to their scheme of aggrandisement at the latter's expense. Roe was too well posted in the affairs of the Court not to be aware of the direction in which the palace intrigues were being promoted. Possessing such knowledge he sagaciously concluded that the situation might be turned to account by his association with Asaf Khan and Noor Mahal. Without loss of time he sought an interview with the former, and under a pledge of secrecy revealed to him the L 162 EARLY ENGLISH ADVENTURERS IN THE EAST fact that the ships had brought a beautiful pearl which he alleged he was anxious to sell, either to the Emperor or to the prince. Asaf Khan swallowed the bait tendered with avidity. He told Roe that he must on no account allow either Jehan- gir or the prince to have the jewel. The Emperor, if he were told about it, would not rest until he got it into his hand, and once it was in his possession Roe would have to sue for it. The prince was tyrannical and opposed to all nationalities. Why not let him have the pearl ? If it were put in his possession, he insinuated, he would recon- cile Roe to the prince and do great things for the English. Roe showed a yielding disposition, but raised doubts as to the possibility of the transaction leaking out. Where- upon Asaf Khan gave his oath, and this was followed by "" a ceremony of covenant by crossing of thumbs." Finally the conspirators embraced in token of their bond of friend- ship. The min'ster proved as good as his word. He took Roe to Prince Khurrum and " persuaded him to alter his course towards us, telling him he gained yearly by us a lakh of Tupees at his port (Surat), that the trade was on the increase, and that if it were interfered with great inconvenience would ensue." Finally, Asaf Khan " moved him for a firman for our present case, and obtained it, promising all manner of content." Afterwards the minister added to the great service he had rendered by writing to the government of Surat on behalf of the Company's representatives. Noor Mahal ably seconded her brother in his support of English interests. In exchange for a promise of priority in the selection of foreign novelties brought by the English ships, she took the cargoes under her special protection, AN IMPERIAL DESPOT IN DRESS AND UNDRESS 163 with the consequence that the irritating exactions of local officials were effectually suppressed. Under the buoyant influence of his diplomatic success, Roe's spirits rose. No longer was he a humble suppliant for favours which were never forthcoming. As he wrote to the Company's officials at Surat, " Noor Mahal is my solicitor and her brother my broker." Asaf Khan was dissatisfied with the pearls or professed to be so when they arrived in the custody of Richard Steele early in November, by which time the Emperor was once more on the march. But he kept nobly to his bargain to the extent even of openly in durbar championing the English cause in opposition to the antagonistic views forcibly expressed by Prince Khurrum. This strange incident, which may be said to have set the seal on the establishment of the English power at Surat, is described by Roe with evident relish in his diary. Roe had attended the durbar to present a letter from James I which had arrived with the latest fleet. In the course of the ceremony of presentation Khurrum entered into an argument with his father as to the value of the English trade, complaining that he had no profit by it and would be well content to be rid of the Company's establishment. Asaf Khan, perceiving the drift of the discussion, " took a turn and roundly told the king that we brought both profit to the port and to the kingdom, and security ; that we were used very rudely by the prince's servants, and that it was not possible for us to rest without amends ; that it were more honourable to his Majesty to license us to depart than to intreat us so discourteously, for it would be the end." The prince made a passionate reply, asserting that he had never done the English any wrong. But he could make no headway against Asaf Khan's advocacy, and in the end Jehangir administered a sharp reproof to his son and directed him to allow the presents to be sent up to Roe with- out being touched and also to give the ambassador such privileges as were fit. The victory was so complete that Roe was content to seek a little relaxation at Ahmedabad, where an English factory had been established, while Jehangir pushed forward into Cambay to obtain his first glimpse of the ocean. Simul- taneously with the ambassador's progress westward an agent of Noor Mahal was speeding to Surat to take advan- tage of the arrangement come to about the selection of novelties. Roe thought the enterprising lady's haste strange, but he forwarded instructions that her envoy should have every consideration on the ground that the opportunity, if discreetly used, might turn out to the Com- pany's advantage. CHAPTER XI A Group of English Adventurers in India Robert Trully, the cornet player William Hemsell, the Great Mogul's coachman Richard Steele His Agra waterworks scheme Thomas Coryat, " the Odcombe Leg Stretcher " Coryat's early career at the Court of James I Coryafs Crudities Coryat's journey overland to India Coryat's audience with Jehangir The Emperor and a Christian con- vert Coryat prepares to return home He dies and is buried at Surat Roe's last days in India He secures an agreement from the Mogul government permitting the English to trade He returns to England FOR the present we may leave Roe resting on his hard, won laurels, and turn to the doings of some of the subsidiary characters who were playing their part in this interlude of what in the end was to prove the great drama of British influence in India. From time to time in the ambassador's diary and in the correspondence of the period, we come across allusions to men of English birth who strutted and fretted their hour upon the ample stage of Indian life, and then were heard of no more. Some there were who were no credit to their race, who to ingratiate themselves with the native potentates " turned Moors," and disappeared from view under a cloud of infamy. Of this class was Robert Trully, a musician, who was brought out to charm the Mogul by his cornet playing, and who, having acquitted himself of this duty 165 166 EARLY ENGLISH ADVENTURERS IN THE EAST indifferently well, went off to the Court of the Bang of the Deccan, where having abjured his faith and undergone circumcision, he was given " great honours," which he enjoyed until the inevitable day of reckoning came, when he fell out of favour. A more honourable type of the humble adventurer was William Hemsell, the English coachman of Jehangir, who found such favour in his im- perial master's sight that he was given a handsome in- come and a position of considerable honour at Court. In the end, the Rev. Edward Terry says, he might have risen " to very great estate, had not death prevented it and that immediately after he was settled in that great service." Belonging to yet another category was Richard Steele, the young oficial of the Company who took the famous pearls from Surat to Mandu, as related in an earlier part of the narrative. Steele was a man of ideas, who had been induced to enter upon an Indian career by the expectation that he would find a lucrative market for them in the Mogul's dominions. One of his enterprises was a scheme for the construction of waterworks at Agra. The success of a pro- ject undertaken in the City of London at the close of the sixteenth century, by which the Thames' water was conveyed to houses by means of pipes, suggested to Steele's fertile mind that a similar undertaking in the Mogul capital would be profitable. He accordingly elaborated proposals by which the waters of the Jumna would be intercepted and passed through lead pipes to the different parts of the City, to the great saving of labour. It was quite a feasible scheme, as history has proved, but unhappily for Steele, he was born two or three centuries too soon. Roe, when he heard of the project, dismissed it as im- A GROUP OF ENGLISH ADVENTURERS IN INDIA 167 practicable, but Steele declined to accept his verdict and intrigued to secure a private audience of the Mogul. Event- ually, through the agency of an English artist who had been brought out for Jehangir's service, he was admitted to the interior of the palace. As soon as he had entered the sacred precincts the chief eunuch " put a cloth over his head that he should not see the women," and he missed what would, no doubt, have been an interesting spectacle, though he heard the fair ones as they passed close to him. On another occasion the attendant, in an obliging mood, used a very thin cloth to blind Steele, and he was enabled to obtain a glimpse of the ladies, " there being of them some hundreds." Possessing a knowledge of Per- sian the Court language Steele was able to prosecute his suit independently, but the project did not appeal to Jehangir, and he was given to understand that it would not be entertained. His wife, who had come out as a maid to Mrs. Towerson, was befriended by a great lady who was Jehangir's hostess at Ahmedabad, and through her influ- ence he secured such a strong position that Roe became seriously alarmed for his own prestige. But his fickle Court patrons eventually abandoned him, as they had done others, and he was glad to take passage with Roe when he returned to England in 1619. He did not again set foot in the country, though he was employed for a time under the Company in Java. Strangest of this band of English adventurers who kept Roe in countenance in his days of exile at the Mogul Court was that amusing, eccentric Thomas Coryat, " the Odcombe leg stretcher," who is famous in English literature as the author of Coryat's Crudities, the most whimsical book on Continental travel that was probably ever penned. 168 EARLY ENGLISH ADVENTURERS IN THE EAST Coryat, who was the son of a Rector of Odcombe, in Somerset, in early life gained an unenviable kind of dis- tinction as a sort of buffoon at the Court of James I. Physical peculiarities, a peaked sugar-loaf formation of head perched upon an ungainly frame, were added to mental gifts of the kind which were effective in one who rilled the role of a wit. Not the least of his attainments was a power of pungent repartee which was exercised at times with deadly effect when some Court favourite ventured to enter into an encounter with him. In 1608 he commenced a prolonged series of wanderings, which took him into every corner of Europe. On his return he brought out his work with the aid of patrons, whose support he secured by " unwearied pertinacity and unblushing im- portunity." The volume was issued with some mock heroic verses by Ben Jonson, in which the author is treated with solemn ridicule. Sighing for more worlds to conquer, Coryat in 1612 started again on his travels, this time directing his face towards the East. Having had a preliminary peep at Egypt and the Pyramids, he proceeded to Joppa and from that port tramped through the Holy Land, thence on to Nineveh and Babylon, down the Euphrates valley to Baghdad, thence through Persia to Kandahar, and so to India. He turned up at Agra in 1615, to find an old friend in Roe, who had known him at James's Court. The ambassador, of course, could not do less than befriend the wanderer. Coryat boasted that he had made his way through Asia at a cost which worked out at no more than twopence per day, and it would seem from his own confessions that the bulk of this modest expenditure was covered by benefac- A GROUP OF ENGLISH ADVENTURERS IN INDIA 169 tions which he received en route. At the Mogul capital he speedily made himself at home. A natural linguist he quickly acquired such proficiency in Hindustani that it is recorded of him that by his generous use of appropriate native expletives he reduced to silence within an hour a native virago who was employed by Roe as washerwoman, and who had given much trouble to the ambassador's household by her extreme volubility. A more questionable and dangerous use of his knowledge of the native language was made one evening at the time of Mohammedan prayer, when in response to the muezzin's cry, " There is no God but Allah, and Mohammed is his Prophet," he shouted in Hindustani that the assertion was a lie, that the true Prophet was Jesus. It says much for the toleration which prevailed at the Mogul capital that the insult was overlooked as the indiscretion of the half-witted " English fakir." Coryat, however, was no fool, as he showed when, having sought and obtained an audience of Jehangir, he launched at him a highly-flattering eulogy in the Persian tongue. In the flowery periods for which that language is famous, he recalled the episode of the Queen of Sheba and Solomon, and assured him that as the famous Queen had found Solo- mon greatly to surpass the expectation she had formed of him, so he had discovered in the dazzling glory of the Great Mogul a picture far beyond the range of his utmost imagin- ings. Jehangir seems to have been pleased with this bare- faced flattery and possibly also amused by the spectacle of the quaint Englishman fluently declaiming the flowery Persian sentences. At the close he said some kindly words to Coryat and dismissed him with a gift of a hundred rupees. 170 EARLY ENGLISH ADVENTURERS IN THE EAST The " leg stretcher " had gone off to the palace without communicating his intention to Roe, and the ambassador, when he heard of the incident, was furious. At the earliest moment he told Coryat that he had degraded the credit of his nation by appearing before the Emperor " out of an insinuating humour to crave money of him." " But," said Coryat, in describing the encounter, " I answered our ambassador in that stout and resolute manner that he ceased nibling at me." A more crushing blow was dealt the eccentric later when Steele, whom he had met in Persia, told him that on reach- ing England and informing James I of the meeting the monarch said by way of comment : "Is that old fool still alive ? " Coryat was reduced for a time to silence by this " unkindest cut of all " from " the Wisest Fool in Europe," in whom he must have recognized a certain kinship. In his whimsical fashion Coryat made a study of Jehan- gir. He apparently thought that the Emperor did not recognize his talents to the full extent that they deserved, but on the whole his verdict was a favourable one. One phase of the Mogul's character of which Coryat approved was that he " loved not shifters of religion." A propos he tells a characteristic story. One day Jehan- gir inquired of a prominent Armenian in his employ whether he thought that " either he or the padres had converted one Moor to be a true Christian ... for conscience' sake." The Armenian replied with confidence that he could pro- duce such a man. Jehangir's curiosity prompted him to send forthwith for the convert. When the man arrived he was asked by the Emperor why he had become a Chris- tian, and he replied with " certain feeble, implicate Jesuiti- cal reasons," declaring that he would never be other than A GROUP OF ENGLISH ADVENTURERS IN INDIA 171 a Christian. Upon this Jehangir endeavoured first by reasoning and then by threats " to draw the man to the folly of Mohammed." But he remained steadfast in his opinions, even under the pain of a severe chastisement. Seeing that the man was not to be moved, the Mogul com- mended his constancy, and sent him back to his master with the intimation that he would receive henceforth a pension of one rupee a day from the imperial exchequer, Some little time after this Jehangir, on returning from a hunting expedition, sent the Armenian a present of a wild hog that formed a part'of the spoils of the chase. The duty of removing the gift devolved upon the convert, and as he was conveying it through the streets he was hooted at by a crowd of Mohammedans, who were angry that one who had been numbered amongst the faithful should handle the unclean beast. In mingled terror and shame the man cast his burden into a ditch and went home. Some days later, on an inquiry being made by the imperial donor as to how the Armenian enjoyed the hog, the whole story came out. Jehangir again had the man up before him. A frown darkened his countenance as he lectured the culprit, in this style " By your law there is no difference of meats, and yet you are ashamed of your laws and to flatter Mohammedans forsake them. Now, I say thou art neither good Christian nor good Mohammedan, but a dissembling knave with both. While I found thee sincere I gave thee a pension which I now take from thee, and for thy dissimulation do command thee to have 100 stripes." The punishment was forthwith administered, and the unfortunate man was dismissed with a comment by the 172 EARLY ENGLISH ADVENTURERS IN THE EAST Emperor that all men should take warning by his example, and should understand that "as he gave liberty to al religions, that which they chose and professed they must stick unto." The time came when Coryat, having exhausted the finan- cial possibilities of the Mogul capital, prepared to return home. Not, we may suppose, without a sigh of satisfac- tion at the prospect of ridding himself of so equivocal a guest, Roe gave the wanderer a letter of introduction to the English Consul at Aleppo, asking him to receive Coryat with courtesy, " for you shall find him a very honest poor wretch," and further requesting him to pay the bearer 10. Terry says that the eccentric " liked the gift well," but that he could not get over the terms in which he was com- mended : " Honest, poor wretch ! " " To say no more of him was to say nothing." Coryat contrasted Roe's grudging recommendation with a letter he had received from Sir Henry Wotton, the Eng- lish minister at Venice, which was in these terms " My Lord, good wine needs no bush, neither a worthy man letters commendatory, because whithersoever he