Nathaniel's nutmeg (25 page)

By the time van der Hagen set sail for Holland the
Dutch could boast three forts in the Spice Islands which
gave them a virtual monopoly on the world's production of
cloves — and had secured a written agreement with the
Banda Islands, theoretically capturing the priceless nutmeg
supply as well. But van der Hagen's mistake was to leave
behind insufficient forces to guarantee this treaty he had
concluded. Scarcely had he left the Banda Islands than a
fleet equipped by the English East India Company sailed
into port and experienced few difficulties in buying
nutmeg from the local islanders.

News of Holland's success was a cause of grave concern to
the directors of the English East India Company. Less than
four years after launching themselves into the spice race
they found that most of the 'spiceries' were already lost to
the Dutch. This caused panic among the Company
directors who resolved to challenge the Dutch authority by
building factories on the clove-producing islands of Tidore
and Ternate as well as on the nutmeg-producing Bandas. They reasoned that having 'factors' or merchants
permanently living on these islands was an essential
requisite to trade in the Spice Islands; not only could these
factors stockpile spices at the time of harvesting when
prices were low, they would also be able to keep an eye on
the movements of the Dutch and appraise newly arrived
fleets of the current situation.

In 1607 they despatched their third expedition to the
East, supplying it with £17,600 of gold bullion (but just
£7,000 of home-produced merchandise). The captains
were urged to stay one step ahead of the Dutch. 'Take your
speedy course along the coast of Malabar,' read their orders,
'that you may come [to Bantam] before the Hollanders
.
..
for they will do what they can to anticipate you at the
Molluccas.' The directors also took the opportunity to
remind all crew members that gambling and swearing was
strictly prohibited, and this time an extra clause was added.
With the thought, perhaps, that cleanliness is next to
godliness, men were asked 'that there be a diligent care to
keep the lowest decks and other places of the ships clean
and sweet, which is
a
notable preservation of health'. This
sudden concern for on-board hygiene owed less to a
concern for the crew's health than to the fact that the
Company had learned that 'the Dutchmen do far exceed
us in cleanliness, to their great commendation, and to the
great disgrace of our people.' The directors had one other request — a trifling matter,
really, but one they felt obliged to fulfil. 'Remember to do
your best to bring for the Lord of Salisbury some parrots,
monkeys, marmasetts, or other strange beasts and fowls that
you esteeme rare and delightful.' The Lord of Salisbury was
the celebrated Robert Cecil, Secretary of State, who had
been pestering the Company for months for exotic animals
to add to his collection. The leaders of the third expedition surpassed themselves when it came to meeting this request, for when the
Hector
at last docked at the Thames-side wharves onlookers were amazed to discover a 'blacke savage' gazing wistfully across the London landscape. His name was Coree, a native of Table Bay, who had made the mistake of clambering on board ship as she revictualled in southern Africa. Realising what a stir he would cause in London, the acting captain Gabriel Towerson took Coree captive and carried him back to England. He proved tiresome company, for 'the poore wretch' moaned throughout the long voyage, not through lack of creature comforts but — according to the ship's journal - 'merely out of extreme sullenness, for he was very well used'.

Sir Thomas Smythe strode down to the Thames to extend a personal welcome to Coree and to assure him that the East India Company would do everything in its power to make his stay as enjoyable and comfortable as possible. Despite these promises, the homesick Coree caused the London merchants much disquiet for he singularly failed to offer them any word of thanks.'He had good diet, good cloaths, good lodging and all other fitting accommodations,' they said, 'yet all this contented him not.' Indeed the longer he stayed in London, the less he appeared to like the city and 'would daily lie upon the ground and cry very often thus in broken English, "Coree go home, Saldania go, home go." 'It was a surprise present of a suit of chain mail, including a brass helmet and breastplate, that gave Coree a change of heart. He was overjoyed with his gift and would don his 'beloved metal' every morning and clatter through the capital's markets proudly displaying his armour to astonished passers-by. When he was at last shipped back to southern Africa having escaped an undignified end as a stuffed accompaniment to Lord Salisbury's collection of hunting trophies, Coree was still wearing his suit of chain mail. However, the novelty of the armour soon wore off, 'for he had no sooner sett foot on his own shore but did presently throw away his cloaths, his linen and other covering and got his sheepskin upon his back and guts aboute his necke'.

It had long been intended that the Company's third expedition should consist of three ships under the overall command of William Keeling, but the irrepressibly energetic David Middleton, captain of the diminutive
Consent,
tired of the slow progress of the
Red Dragon
and
Hector
and decided to press on without them. It was a wise decision for by the time Captain Keeling reached the Spice Islands, Middleton had already returned to England and was planning his next expedition to the East Indies.

David Middleton was the youngest of the intrepid Middleton trio and the most impatient and businesslike of them all. Never one to dawdle in foreign ports, his overriding concern was to conduct his business in as short a time as possible. Travelling at breakneck pace across the Atlantic he arrived at Table. Bay with the loss of just one man, 'Peter Lambert [who] fell off the top-most head, whereof he died.' He paused briefly to stock up on fresh food and was soon under way again, this time heading towards Madagascar. Here Middleton stopped to inspect the island but, after a cursory glance, decided 'there was nothing on it' and continued with his voyage, arriving in Bantam less than eight months after leaving Tilbury. Almost every expedition that made it to Bantam did so in poor shape. Men on board would be sick and dying while the factors living in the town were generally found to be in an advanced state of degeneracy. Not so on this occasion. The ever-efficient David Middleton headed straight ashore for a meeting with Gabriel Towerson, the factor left behind by his brother Henry in 1604, and 'found the merchants in very good health and all things in good order'. Towerson expressed concern that the youngest Middleton lacked in experience what he made up for in enthusiasm and warned him that any dealings with the Spanish or Portuguese would be viewed with hostility by the Dutch. But Middleton needed no lectures on how to conduct business: although sailing in a tiny vessel and without an accompanying fleet he was full of bravado and informed Towerson that he 'cared little for their threats and brags'. Towerson recorded all this in a lengthy letter to his superiors in London and although scrupulously impartial when writing about this youngest Middleton, his verbatim report of Middleton's behaviour does the captain few favours. Towerson clearly felt that Middleton's headstrong nature betrayed his youth. But Middleton was no fool and played a clever game of cat and mouse when he reached the spice-rich Moluccas. Having dashed across the Indian Ocean to get here, he now spent more than two months wining and dining the Spanish and Portuguese, apologising for not participating in sorties against the Dutch but explaining that it would run contrary to his orders. He cared little that the Spanish steadfastly refused to sell him spices for, in the words of Samuel Purchas, his men 'had privy trade with the people by night, and were joviall and frolicke by day with the Spaniards'. Setting sail from Tidore, his next port of call was the island of Celebes where he found himself royally entertained by the King of Butung or, as the jovial crew nicknamed him, the King of Button.This island was almost unknown to the English but Middleton enjoyed his stay here and found the King a curious fellow who was only too keen to entertain his guests with banquets and sweetmeats. Some meals were novel affairs; the ship's purser found himself eating in a room whose interior decor consisted entirely of rotting human heads dangling from the ceiling.

Scarcely had the English made their final farewells to the King of Button than they had a stroke of good fortune. The captain of a passing junk sent a message to Middleton that he was laden with cloves which were for sale. Middleton jumped at this piece of news. He bought the lot and, not bothering to sail to the Banda Islands to buy nutmeg, immediately returned to England. One mishap marred their leaving: 'Our captain had bought some slaves from the king,' records the ship's journal, 'and as we were busy this night, one of them stole out of our captain s cabbin door and leaped into the sea, and swum ashore, and was never heard of.' The few captains who later followed Middleton's lead and bought slaves all met with similar problems. They either escaped when the ships reached port or died en route. Slaves apart, the
Consent
had a trouble-free return to England. Middleton had spent just £3,000 on cloves but when they were sold on the London market they reaped more than £36,000.The rest of the fleet was making painfully slow progress towards the East Indies. Setting sail from England on April Fools' Day, 1607, it was beset by troubles from the very beginning. So numerous were the 'divers disasters', in fact, that its commander, William Keeling, tired of describing them and contented himself with a list: 'Gusts, calms, rains, sickness, and other marine inconveniences.' Keeling was the antithesis of the businesslike David Middleton. In the journal of his voyage he cuts a flamboyant figure whose erratic behaviour was to cause many problems for the Company directors. On a later trip he smuggled his beloved wife on board ship, contrary to Company rules, and kept her hidden in his cabin. She was discovered soon after the ship left England and a rowing boat was sent to bring her back to land, though not before Keeling had written dozens of letters to the exasperated directors in London informing them that he loved his wife dearly and thought their actions to be mean-spirited.

Keeling's other great passion was the plays of William Shakespeare and, as his ship drifted listlessly in the mid- Atlantic, he spent his leisure time planning a magnificent performance of one of the bard's plays. While the men on the
Hector
were busy mending ropes and caulking the decks, the crew of Keeling's vessel were learning speeches, sewing costumes and performing dress rehearsals. Finally, the big day arrived. Dropping anchor off the coast of Sierra Leone the dilettantish Keeling watched a final rehearsal and decided that his men were as good as they would ever be. A select audience was invited from the
Hector
and the play performed under the star-studded African sky. 'We gave,' wrote the proud captain, 'the tragedie of Hamlett.' If this is correct it must have been one of the earliest amateur performances of the play, staged not in the Globe Theatre but on the mangrove-tangled shores of equatorial Africa. What Keeling's crew thought of these dramatics has passed unrecorded. More certain is that the spills and adventures of English mariners provided Shakespeare with an endless supply of material for his plays, and it was surely one of the East India Company's sailors, mimicking the strictures of his superiors, who put the words into the mouth of Shakespeare's Clown in
Twelfth Night:
'I would have men of such constancy put to sea, that their business might be everything and their intent everywhere; for that's it that always make a good voyage of nothing.' Other plays echo the risks that investors took when they ploughed money into the spice trade and many merchants must, like Antonio's friend in
The
Merchant of Venice,
have spent their waking hours thinking,

of shallows and of flats;

And see my wealthy Andrew dock'd in sand

Vailing her high-top lower than her ribs

To kiss her burial. Should I go to church