Nathaniel's nutmeg (2 page)

Nutmeg, the seed of the tree, was the most coveted
luxury in seventeenth-century Europe, a spice held to have
such powerful medicinal properties that men would risk
their lives to acquire it. Always costly, it rocketed in price
when the physicians of Elizabethan London began
claiming that their nutmeg pomanders were the only
certain cure for the plague, that 'pestiferous pestilance' that
started with a sneeze and ended in death. Overnight, this
withered little nut - until now used to cure flatulence and
the common cold — became as sought after as gold.

There was one drawback to the sudden and urgent
demand: no one could be sure from exactly where the
elusive nutmeg originated. London's merchants had
traditionally bought their spices in Venice, and Venice's
merchants had in turn bought them in Constantinople. But
nutmeg came from much further east, from the fabled
Indies which lay far beyond Europe's myopic horizons.
Ships had never before plied the tropical waters of the
Indian Ocean and maps of the far side of the globe
remained a blank. The East, as far as the spice dealers were
concerned, could have been the moon.

Had they known in advance of the difficulties of
reaching the source of nutmeg they might never have set
sail. Even in the East Indies where spices grew like weeds,
nutmeg was a rarity; a tree so fussy about climate and soil
that it would grow only on a tiny cluster of islands, the
Banda archipelago, which were of such impossible
remoteness that no one in Europe could be sure if they
existed at all. The spice merchants of Constantinople had
scant information about these islands and what they did
know was scarcely encouraging. There were rumours of a

monster that preyed on passing ships, a creature of 'devillish
possession' that lurked in hidden reefs. There were stories of
cannibals and head-hunters - bloodthirsty savages who
lived in palm-tree shacks decorated with rotting human
heads. There were crocodiles that lay concealed in rivers,
hidden shoals to catch captains unawares, and 'such mightie
stormes and extreme gusts of winde' that even the sturdiest
of ships were placed in grave risk.

None of these dangers deterred Europe's profit-hungry
merchants who would chance everything in their des­peration to be the first to find nutmeg's source. Soon the
shipyards of Portugal, Spain and England were alive to the
clatter of shipbuilding, a flurry of activity that sparked what

would later become known as the spice race, a desperate
and protracted struggle for control of one of the smallest
groups of islands in the world.

In 1511, the Portuguese became the first Europeans to
set foot in the Banda Islands, a group of six lumps of rock
boasting rich volcanic soil and a strange micro-climate.
Distracted by hostilities elsewhere in the East Indies, they
did not return until 1529 when a Portuguese trader named
Captain Garcia landed troops on the Bandas. He was
surprised to discover that the islands which had caused
such commotion in Europe had a combined area that was
not much larger than Lisbon. Five of the Bandas were
within gunshot of each other, and it was immediately
apparent to Garcia that by building a castle on the principal
island, Neira, he would have virtual control over the entire
archipelago.

But one island, Run, was different. It lay more than ten
miles to the west of Neira and was surrounded by dangerous
and hidden reefs. It was also buffeted by the twice-yearly
monsoon, putting it beyond the reach of Garcia's carracks
for much of the year. This was galling to the Portuguese,
for Run was thickly forested in nutmeg and its annual yield
was enough to fill a large flotilla of ships. But Captain Garcia
soon found himself troubled less by the inaccessibility of this
outlying island than by the hostility of the native Bandanese
whose warlike antics proved both tiresome and costly.
Scarcely had his sailors set to work on a massive castle than
a flurry of arrows and the threat of head-hunting sent them
scurrying back to their ship. Henceforth, the Portuguese
rarely visited the islands, preferring instead to buy their
nutmeg from the native traders who were frequent visitors
at their fortress in Malacca.

The misfortunes suffered by the Portuguese did not
discourage England's merchants from launching themselves
into the spice race and nor did it deter the captains chosen
to lead these expeditions; bold and fearless men who
steered their ships through such 'greevous stormes' that one
in three was lost. The weather was not the only threat:
scurvy, dysentery and the 'blody flux' killed hundreds of
men, and countless vessels had to be scuppered when there
was no longer a crew to sail them. When the ships finally
limped back from the East the surviving crews found the
wharves of London packed with people anxious to catch a
glimpse of these heroic men. The crowds were fuelled by
stories that the sailors on board were returning with untold
wealth; that they wore doublets of silk, that their main sail
was made of damask and their top sails trimmed with cloth
of gold. Although the humble sailors had been strictly
forbidden from indulging in 'private trade', the temptations
proved too great for many. After all, nutmeg commanded
fabulous prices in Courthope's day and brought spectacular
profits to all who traded in it. In the Banda Islands, ten
pounds of nutmeg cost less than one English penny. In
London; that same spice sold for more than £2.10s. - a
mark-up of a staggering 60,000 per cent. A small sackful
was enough to set a man up for life, buying him a gabled
dwelling in Holborn and a servant to attend to his needs.
London's merchants were so concerned about the illegal
trade in nutmeg when their first fleet arrived back in
London that they ordered the dockyard workers to wear
'suits of canvas without pockets'. This did little to deter the
sea-hardened mariners from filching their masters' spice
and although punishments grew ever more severe over the
decades, many still managed to amass private fortunes. As
late as 1665, Samuel Pepys records a clandestine meeting
with some sailors 'at a blind alehouse at the further end of
town' where he exchanged a sackful of gold for a small
quantity of nutmeg and cloves.

The men that survived the expeditions to the Spice
Islands returned with such fabulous tales and scrapes, true
Boy's Own adventures, that their audiences were left
spellbound. David Middleton had a dramatic escape from
the cannibals of Ceram; the dilettantish William Keeling
performed Shakespeare in the mangrove swamps of West
Africa, whilst William Hawkins paid a visit to the Indian
Great Moghul and spent the next two years watching
gladiator battles of a scale and brutality not seen since the
days of imperial Rome. There was Sir Henry Middleton,
David's brother, who dropped anchor off the coast of
Arabia and distinguished himself by becoming the first
Englishman to visit the interior of the country, albeit as a
prisoner with 'a great paire of fetters clapt upon my legges'.
And there was James Lancaster, commander of the
pioneering first expedition to be organised by the East
India Company, who spent a delightful evening listening to
a scantily clad gamelan orchestra that belonged to the lusty
Sultan of Achin.

After all the disasters and false starts it was appropriate that
England's first contact with the nutmeg islands should be
with Run, the smallest and least accessible of them all. It was
also fitting that they should arrive in such an undignified
fashion, washed up as shipwrecks after a ferocious tropical
storm in 1603. But what was all the more remarkable was
that these English mariners, unlike the Portuguese, struck up
an instant and lasting friendship with the native chieftains.
Long before the sea-salt had stiffened their hair they were
toasting each other with the local palm toddy.

England had scarcely launched herself into the spice race
when she learned there was a new power to contend with.

In 1595, the Dutch despatched their first fleet eastwards
with a crew more menacing and warlike than had ever
before been encountered in the tropics. Faced with
competition from both the English and Portuguese, they
changed their goal from trade to conquest — the conquest
of the Banda Islands — and they pursued this with a
brutality that shocked even their own countrymen. But on
the island of Run they were to meet their match. What
happened on that remote atoll, just two miles long and half
a mile wide, was to have consequences that no one could
ever have imagined.

The extraordinary story of Nathaniel's nutmeg has been
largely forgotten for more than three centuries. It is not
always a pleasant tale, for although the captains and leaders
of expeditions liked to refer to themselves as 'men of
qualitye', that did not stop them from indulging in torture,
brutality and gratuitous warfare. Such were the grim
realities of life in the East, a harsh and bloody existence that
was lightened by the occasional flash of humanity and
courage
-
true feats of heroism that were epitomised by the
bravery of Nathaniel Courthope.