Nathaniel's nutmeg (17 page)

On 11 September 1603, some two years and seven
months after they had set sail from the Thames, the vessels
finally anchored off the Downs, 'for which thanked be
Almightie God, who hath delivered us from infinite perils
and dangers in this long and tedious navigation'.

Compared to previous expeditions, this one had been an unqualified success. Wherever the Portuguese had been encountered in the Indian Ocean they had been of little threat — indeed the English were proving remarkably adept at disabling their unwieldy carracks. In the spice port of Bantam, Lancaster had found few difficulties in acquiring a full lading of spice and had even been allowed to build a small warehouse close to the harbour and leave behind a permanent staff. Even more impressive was the fact that all five of his ships had returned safely and more than a million pounds of spices had been successfully brought into the kingdom. But Lancaster had his misgivings. He had lost almost half his men, including his friends John Middleton and William Brund, and had failed to reach the islands far to the east of Bantam. As he kneeled before the King and received his knighthood, Sir James could only hope that the men he left behind - those eight crew and three merchants — would have the courage to sail to the Banda Islands in their tiny pinnace.

chapter four

In the
Paws
of
the
Lion

T
he English traders
left in Bantam watched the departure of Lancaster's fleet with deep misgivings.

They had no idea when they might see their next
English vessel but it was certain to be at least two years. In
the meantime they were in a wholly unfamiliar environ­ment, living in this fly-blown port on sufferance of the
boy-king's Protector and terrified that they would soon
succumb to the same sickness that had killed so many of
their colleagues.

Lancaster had only reinforced their sense of vulner­ability when he wrote down the hierachy of command to
be adhered to if and when they died. William Starkey was
put in overall charge with Thomas Morgan as his deputy,
but 'if it please God to lay his hand upon you and take you
out of this world' then Edmund Scott was to take control.

In the event such caution proved all too necessary. Starkey
died in June 1603, having already outlived Morgan by two
months. Only Edmund Scott survived to see the arrival of
the East India Company's second expedition and, to his
evident relief, was allowed to join the fleet when it headed
back to England.

Lancaster showed a similar concern for the moral well-being of his men. Bantam was infamous in the East for its
loose women and lax morals and an air of profligacy hung
over the town like the plague of typhoid that frequently
descended on its inhabitants. He ordered Starkey that 'you
meet together in the morninges and eveninges in prayer.
God, whom ye serve, shall the better bless you in all your
affairs.' He also begged them to 'agree together lovingly, like
sober men [and] govern yourselves so that there be no
brabbles among you for any cause'.

These men, who for so long had complained about the
strict daily routine on board ship, now found themselves
comforted by an ordered existence. The day began at dawn
with William Starkey offering prayers of thanksgiving, and
this was followed by a light breakfast. The main meal was at
midday at which all the factors would sit together at a long
table, seated in strict accordance with his position. The rice,
mutton and tropical fruit which they ate, all of which was
bartered in Bantam's souks, was washed down with locally
distilled arak, a fiery spirit that was glugged in considerable
quantity by these drink-hardened men. One captain who
arrived in Bantam a few years later professed himself
horrified at the drunken behaviour of the factors. 'If any be
found by excessive drinking or otherwise like to prove a
scandal to our nation,' he said, 'use first sharp reprehensions,
and if that work not reformation then by the first ship send
him home with a writing showing the reasons thereof.'

Once the English were familiar with life in Bantam
they prepared to carry out Lancaster's instructions. Three
of the factors were to remain in the city and buy pepper
in preparation for the Company's second voyage. The rest
of the men were to sail to the remote Banda Islands under
the command of Master Keche and acquire as much spice
as was available. Lancaster was most specific in his request

for nutmeg: 'Have you a great care to receive such as be
good,' he told them, 'for the smallest and rotten nutmegs
be worth nothing at home.' Such a warning was born from
experience. It had long been the custom of wily merchants
to fill their sacks with old and rotten spices, as well as dust
and twigs, in order to increase the weight and swell their
profits.

The little pinnace hoisted its sails soon after the English
fleet had departed from Bantam and gingerly headed east
into uncharted waters. But no sooner had it come within
sight of the 'spiceries' than contrary winds began to blow
and the ship drifted off course. What happened next
remains unclear for the report written by the men has been
lost and only a couple of letters survive. Struck by

'contrarietie of wynde', the ship spent two months 'beating
up and down in the seas' in a desperate attempt to reach the
outlying Banda Islands. This proved wholly unsuccessful
until a tremendous storm washed the boat up on Run's
remote shores. The hardy English sailors were given a
friendly welcome by the islanders who thought them too
few to be of any threat. They were soon busily trading
nutmeg with these storm-tossed sailors and even allowed
them to construct a flimsy bamboo and thatch warehouse
on the island's northern coastline.

Lancaster's fleet arrived back to a London steeped in
gloom. The capital was in the grip of the plague and the
streets and alleys around the Company's house in Philpot
Lane were silent but for the rattle of tumbrels and barrows
bearing corpses out of the city. The plague had not spared
the Company directors: two had already succumbed to the
disease while others had fled London for the safety of the
countryside.

Hearing that the first of Lancaster's ships had arrived in
Plymouth the Company directors bestirred themselves.
Bestowing the princely sum of five pounds to the local
courier 'for his pains in riding hither

with the first report
of the coming of the Ascension', they sent strict orders
back to Plymouth that the ship's cargo was not to be
touched until she was safely moored in the Thames. Even
then they could not be too careful; the six porters charged
with unloading the ship were instructed to wear pocketless

suits, just in case they should feel the urge to filch some
spice.

The
Ascension
had made speedy progress back to
England and arrived in advance of the other ships.
Lancaster, together with the rest of the fleet, sailed up the
Thames in September 1603, by which time almost 38,000
Londoners had fallen victim to the plague. There were
none of the cheering crowds that had seen them off two-
and-a-half years previously. The wharves lay silent and the
dockyards were closed for Londoners were too scared to
venture out of doors. The playwright Thomas Dekker
summed up the sombre mood that hung over the city in
his ironically titled
The Wonderfull Yeare:

No musick now is heard but bells,

And all their tunes are sick mens knells;

And every stroake the bell does toll,

Up to heaven it windes a soule.

Even the physicians had fled for their lives, leaving only a
handful of brave practitioners to sell their 'pomanders and
what not' and reap enormous profits from their nutmeg
potions: 'I confesse they are costly,' explained one doctor to
his ailing client, 'but cheape medicines are as dear as death.'

To the voyage-hardened crew, death had become so
commonplace that it was treated with a cavalier contempt.
'Walker died laughing,' reads one journal. 'Woodes and I
staked two pieces-of-eight on his body, and after a long
play, I won.' But one death caused many a sailor to shed
tears: just a few months earlier Queen Elizabeth I, the last
of the great Tudor monarchs, had passed away at her palace
in Richmond. There was now a new ruler on the throne —
Elizabeth's haughty Scottish cousin King James - who
showed far less sympathy than his predecessor to the likes
of the common burghers who formed the backbone of the
East India Company.

Despite the general gloom, Lancaster was given an
enthusiastic reception on his return and duly received his
knighthood from the King. But the pressing problem
facing the merchants was how, in the midst of the worst
plague London could remember, to dispose of more than a
million pounds in weight of pepper. Cash was desperately
needed to pay off the sailors who had survived the voyage,
the subscribers were anxiously clamouring for money, and
preparations for the second voyage were unthinkable until
the present stock had been sold.