Nathaniel's nutmeg (15 page)

It is ironic that just as sceptics in England were
beginning to question the veracity of accounts by
medieval 'explorers' like Sir John Mandeville, genuine
travellers were reporting sights that bore witness to their
more outlandish tales. Sir Walter Ralegh was one of those
sceptics who changed his opinion of Mandeville after
hearing the reports filtering back from the mysterious
East. 'Mandeville's reports were holden for fables many
yeeres,' he wrote, 'and yet since the East Indies were
discovered, we find his relations true of such things as
heretofore were held incredible.'

When Lancaster arrived here he counted no fewer than
sixteen ships at anchor, including vessels from Gujarat,
Bengal, Calicut and the Malay Peninsula.

Lancaster's chief pilot, John Davis, had visited Achin on
his voyage with Cornelis Houtman and vividly recorded
his meeting with the city's powerful ruler Ala-uddin Shah.
The Sultan, he had discovered, was a keen Anglophile and
had chatted enthusiastically to Houtman about England's
seafaring victories — an enthusiasm not reciprocated by the
Dutchman. When Ala-uddin learned that Houtman had a
genuine Englishman on board he demanded to meet him
immediately. 'He inquired much of England,' wrote Davis
in his diary, 'of the Queen, of her Pashas, and how she could
hold wars with so great a King as the Spaniard (for he
thinks that Europe is all Spanish.) In these his demands he
was fully satisfied, as it seemed to his great good liking.'

While in audience with the Sultan, Davis was gathering
important information about Ala-uddin's personality and
tastes; information which proved invaluable when he
arrived back in England. Not only was the Company able
to draft a suitable letter to the Sultan written in Queen
Elizabeth's own hand, they were also able to buy him
presents that were likely to find favour. He was a man of
extravagant tastes; 'a lusty man, but exceeding gross and fat'
- according to Davis - who was more than one hundred
years old, 'as they say'. According to local tradition, he had
been brought up a humble fisherman but, courageous and
daring in wartime, was given command of the army and
married to a relative of the reigning monarch. Ala-uddin
promptly murdered the king and assumed the purple,
ruling the country with an iron fist. Born to fight, he had
held Queen Elizabeth in the highest regard ever since news
of the Spanish Armada's defeat had filtered across the Indian Ocean. Now, with Lancaster's fleet anchored in the
bay, he was keen to meet one of her most trusted servants.

John Middleton, captain of the
Hector,
was the first to
step ashore; he told the Sultan he had been sent by
Lancaster to inform His Majesty that their fleet bore a
letter from the Queen of England. The Sultan was most
pleased and, presenting Middleton with a turban wrought
with gold, he invited Lancaster to come ashore after he had
rested himself for a day

Lancaster acquitted himself well and, if the accounts are
accurate, handled the Sultan with aplomb. Stepping ashore,
he was welcomed by Ala-uddin's messengers who
immediately demanded the Queen's letter so they could
take it to the King. Lancaster refused, saying that such a
letter, from so powerful a monarch, might be delivered only
by himself.

The Sultan, too, was anxious to impress upon Lancaster
the magnificence of his court and lavished every available
resource on the English entourage:

He presently sent sixe great elephants, with many
trumpets, drums, and streamers, with many people, to
accompany the generall [Lancaster] to the court, so
that the presse was exceeding great. The biggest of
these elephants was about thirteene or fourteene foot
high; which had a small castle like a coach upon his
back, covered with crimson velvet. In the middle
thereof was a great basin of gold, and a peece of silke
exceedingly richly wrought to cover it, under which
Her Majesties letter was put. The generall was
mounted upon another of the elephants. Some of his
attendants rode; others went on foote. But when he
came to the court gate, there a nobleman stayed the
general, till he had gone in to know the king's further
pleasure .
..
And when the general came to the king's
presence, he made his obeysance after the manner of
the country, declaring that hee was sent from the
most mightie Queene of England to congratulate
with High Highnesse, and treat with him concerning
a peace and amitie with His Majestie, if it pleased him
to entertaine the same.

First, Ala-uddin was presented with the gifts: a basin of solid
silver with a fountain in the middle, a huge silver goblet, a
rich looking glass, a case of fine pistols, a magnificent
headpiece, and a finely wrought embroidered belt. The
Sultan received all these graciously, but was particularly
taken by the fan of feathers he was given. He called for one
of his attendant mistresses and ordered that she fan him
continually. This, the cheapest of all the gifts, was a runaway
success: 'the thing that most pleased him'.

Now it was time to present the Queen's letter which, it
was hoped, would make a favourable impression. Wrapped
in silk, decorated with fabulous swirls of calligraphy and
delivered to the Sultan in a gold ewer securely fastened to
a huge bull elephant, it was given the most dramatic billing
possible.

The letter's contents were, by turn, flattering,
obsequious, anti-Portuguese and businesslike. Pandering to
the Sultan's vanity, but at the same time imploring
favourable trading privileges, it described Ala-uddin as 'our
loving brother', recognising 'the honorable and truly royall
fame which hath hither stretched'. After glorifying him for
his 'humane and noble usage of strangers', it went on to
attack the Portuguese and Spanish who 'pretend
themselves to be monarchs and absolute lords of all these
kingdomes and provinces'. Finally, after more than two
pages of preamble, it arrived at the substance. Queen
Elizabeth I, it said, would like to begin regular commerce
with Ala-uddin, to settle merchants in his capital and open
a warehouse for the stockpiling of provisions. 'Trade,' it
grandiloquently informed His Highness, 'not only breeds
intercourse and exchange of merchandise ... but also
engenders love and friendship betwixt all men.'

Reading it in private Ala-uddin was captivated by the
Queen's sentiments and found himself agreeing whole­heartedly. He told Lancaster that he was well pleased with
what he had read and accepted all the Queen's requests.
Once the deal had been signed it was time for the Sultan's
banquet, a dizzying affair in which prodigious quantities of
food and alcohol were followed into the banqueting room
by a troupe of the Sultan's damsels and musicians. The food
was served on beaten golden platters while the arak, a fiery
and extremely alcoholic rice wine, was knocked back in
copious quantities. Throughout the meal the Sultan, who
sat aloft in a gallery, kept offering toasts to his new-found
friend. Lancaster had to beg Ala-uddin that he might mix
his arak with water, 'for a little will serve to bring one
asleep'. The Sultan, gracious as ever, consented.

Next came the cabaret. Sultan Ala-uddin 'caused his
damosels to come forth and dance, and his women to play
musicke unto them; and these women were richly attired
and adorned with bracelets and jewels'. This performance
was a special treat, 'for these are not usually seene of any
but such as the king will greatly honour.' But the
entertainments did not end here; there were endless other
activities to amuse the newcomers including a lengthy
bout of cock-fighting, the Sultan's favourite sport. And
although not recorded in the ships' journals, it is quite
possible that some of the more daring crew members took
part in the celebrated Achinese speciality, the sub-aqua
drinking bouts in which guests perched on low stools in a
river while court butlers served generous beakers of arak.

Although Lancaster was delighted by the Sultan's
reception he soon grew concerned that he had yet to buy
a single ounce of spice. Worse, he now learned that pepper
— far from costing four pieces-of-eight for the
hundredweight — was actually being sold for almost twenty.
Realising that he could not hope to fill his ships in Achin,
Lancaster returned to the Sultan and diplomatically asked
for his permission to set sail for other ports. Ala-uddin
agreed, but there was an important condition attached.
'Thou must bring me a fair Portugall maiden when thou
returnest, and then I am pleased.' Lancaster smiled, the
Sultan chuckled, and the English ships prepared to depart.