Nathaniel's nutmeg (38 page)

The news from Banda was not good. Gerald Reynst, the
Dutch governor-general had recently arrived in the islands bringing with him a fleet of eleven ships, an army of a thousand soldiers, and orders to impose his unchallengeable control over the Banda Islands. As he sailed into Neira harbour the volcano, Gunung Api, erupted in spectacular fashion, convincing the superstitious islanders that some­thing portentous was about to occur.

The two Georges, Ball and Cokayne, arrived soon after, sailing straight to Neira and anchoring before the Dutch castle. The Hollander vessels caused them a moment's anxiety but they saluted them with a couple of cannon shots and prepared to visit Reynst the following morning. They used the intervening hours wisely. Both men rowed over to Great Banda and made contact with the native chieftains, enquiring about the possibility of building a fortified English factory. The sight of the Englishmen caused the natives to pour out their feelings and one of the headmen, 'pointing to the Fleming castle, [said] that it makes old men to weep, and will the child that is unborn, saying as God hath given them a country to them and their, so He hath sent the Hollanders as a plague unto them, making wars upon them and by unjust proceedings seeking to take their country from them'.

So far the English vessels had been untroubled by the Dutch, but as the men returned to their ships a Dutch pinnace crowded with soldiers stopped them and ordered them to a meeting with the governor-general. After a brief stand-off the soldiers opened fire and Ball, realising the futility of resistance, sent Cokayne ashore as his messenger.

Reynst had been fuming ever since he watched the English ships sail into his harbour. Now, with the Englishman standing in front of him, he demanded to see Cokayne s East India Company papers. Cokayne's refusal sent Reynst into an apoplexy of rage. 'He then standing up, fluttering his papers at my face, saying we were rogues and rascals, not having anything but from Thomas Smythe of London, most vilely railing of our Honourable Company.' He added that King James I had recently declared that the Dutch 'had all the right that might be, and no others, to these places of Banda'. After a few further words of abuse Reynst finished by saying 'that we came to steal more voyages from them as others had done before, naming Keeling and Middleton'.

It was clear that the English were not going to have much luck trading at Neira or Great Banda and the following morning they hoisted their sails and headed for Ai, five miles to the west of the main islands. Reynst immediately ordered a squadron of Dutch ships to follow them but these were shaken off in a gale and Cokayne slipped ashore unhindered, the islanders 'much rejoicing of our coming'. Reynst's control over this small, nutmeg-rich island was almost non-existent but Ai's chieftains were nonetheless nervous about the thousand soldiers barracked on Neira and, fearing attack, provided the English with a warm welcome. They knew from the antics of Keeling and Middleton that the English were united in their hatred of the Dutch and, when they learned of their desire to settle a permanent factory on the island, consented immediately. An agreement was struck, a factory built, and Ball and Cokayne sailed away laden with nutmeg, leaving Sophony Cozucke and a few men to guard the island. One of these, a trader called John Skinner, felt so confident of their impregnable position that he wrote to a friend: 'Truly I durst lay all that I ever shall be worth whilst I live that the Hollanders never get the islands of Banda, for all the Bandanese will lose their lives before they will be under the Hollanders.'What gave him even greater satisfaction was that Gunung Api, the volcano, was now erupting with such force that huge boulders were raining down on the Dutch casde on Neira. Skinner claimed that the soldiers had 'begun to make way to leave the castle' and believed that were it not for the choleric Reynst they would have fled the islands altogether.

The Dutch governor-general soon knocked the waverers into shape, informing them not only that they were here to stay, but that they were about to launch a massive offensive against Ai. Many were only too keen to escape the dangers posed by the volcano, unaware that Ai's awkward geography made an invasion extremely hazardous. 'The sea shoare is so steepe that it seemeth nature meant to reserve this iland particularly to herselfe,' wrote one observer. 'There is but one place about the whole iland for a ship to anchor in; and that so dangerous that he that letteth fall his anchor seldome seeth the weighing of it againe; besides he incurreth the imminent dangers of his ship.'The invasion was scheduled for the morning of 14 May 1615, and Reynst — who dismissed the difficulties — declared himself confident that it would be in Dutch hands within a matter of hours. He was taking no chances; almost a thousand Dutch and Japanese soldiers were pitched against Ai's five-hundred-strong fighting force and the Hollanders were armed to the teeth with muskets and cannon. But from the moment they launched their attack the Dutch troops were surprised by the resistance they encountered. The native marksmanship was far more accurate than anything they had experienced on Neira or Great Banda and the island strongholds were particularly well designed. These fortifications snaked upwards from the shoreline to the hills so that even when the Dutch captured long sections of wall they found to their annoyance that they were open to attack from defenders higher up the hillside.

The English on Ai had spent time and effort preparing themselves for the invasion. Not only had they planned a detailed defence of the island, they had also trained the natives to use muskets and taught them how to hold their positions. Had they not been faced with such an over­whelmingly larger force, the men of Ai might well have saved the island from capture. But successive waves of Dutch attackers gradually disheartened the defenders and by night­fall their army had succeeded in overrunning most of the island, leaving only one remote fort still controlled by the Bandanese. As the sun went down the Dutch celebrated their victory, then went to sleep in the knowledge that tomorrow the whole island would be theirs.

It was a fatal mistake, for in the early hours the Bandanese crept out of their fort and launched a savage counter-attack. The Dutch soldiers, heavy with sleep and in unfamiliar surroundings, were sitting ducks. Twenty-seven were killed outright and dozens more wounded as they fought their way back to their ships. Two Dutchmen, convinced that all was lost, suddenly switched over to the enemy. One of them clambered into a tree and killed two of his erstwhile comrades with a single shot. The Dutch humiliation was complete. As the ships limped back to Neira, the scale of their defeat gradually became apparent. In one day's fighting they had lost thirty-six soldiers, with two hundred wounded and two defections. Reynst was devastated, never recovered from the humiliation and died a few months later.

The role of the English in this debacle did not pass unrecorded by Jan Coen who sent two letters to the Seventeen in Amsterdam. In the first he informed them that the English 'want to reap what we have sowed, and they brag that they are free to do so because their king has authority over the Netherlands nation.' In the second he

was more forthright. 'You can be assured,' he wrote, 'that if you do not send a large capital at the earliest opportunity ... the whole Indies trade is liable to come to nothing.'

The Seventeen, in fact, had every intention of con­tinuing their war against the island of Ai and in the spring of 1616 they despatched Admiral Jan Dirkz Lam to the Banda Islands with one simple order: Ai was to be brought under Dutch control. The natives on Ai knew that the Dutch would return to punish them and were equally certain that they would be unable to withstand a second attack. They therefore asked Sophony Cozucke to sail one of their chieftains to Bantam so that he could personally deliver a letter to John Jourdain.

'We have all heard even from farr countryes of the greate love and peace that the Kinge of England has with all the world ...' it read, 'and hath done no hurt to any of our religion, or doth seeke to overthrowe our lawe, and doth not by force attempt to overcome any man's kingdome, but only peace and frindshipp doth seeke trade without violence.'

Therefore we all desire to come to an agrement with the Kinge of England, because that nowe the Hollanders do practize by all meanes possible to conquer our country and destroy our religion, by reason whereof all of us of the Islands of Banda do utterly hate the very sight of theis Hollanders, sonnes of Whores, because they exceede in lying and villainy and desire to overcome all men's country by trechery. These are the occasions whie we soe extreamely hate them. We have nowe therefore with one general consent, resolved never hereafter to trade with them, but allwayes to esteeme them our utter enimyes, wherefore we all thought good to send this lettre ... that if so be the kinge of England out of his love towards us will have a care of our cuntry and religion and will help us with artillary powder and shott and help us to recover the castle of Neira, whereby we may be able to make warrs with the Hollanders, by God's helpe all the spice that all our island's shall yeald, we will onely sell to the King of England, and to no other nation in the world.

There was only one proviso attached to the agreement: 'that [if] in small matters the Bandanezers should give occasion of discontent to the English, or the English doe that which might be distastful to the Bandanezars, that then with mutuall consent like frinds they would beare with each others errors; onely we all desire that you doe not seeke to overthrowe our religion, and that you do not comitt offence with our weomen, because theis twoe onely we are not able to endure'.

Such words were music to the ears of Jourdain who was already dreaming of expanding the English factory in Ai- Now was the time to act and, in December 1615, he assembled a squadron of three ships, the
Thomas,
the
Concord
and the
Speedwell,
and instructed them to sail for Banda without further ado. But just as they were about to leave Bantam Jourdain received a note from Jan Coen warning him that henceforth all English shipping was banned from the Banda Islands and that any vessel contravening this order would be expelled by force and 'if any slaughter of men happened ... they would not be culpable.'

The arrival of two new English ships under the command of Samuel Castleton strengthened Jourdain's resolve. Castleton had always intended to sail to the Banda Islands and had no intention of being deflected from his mission by an arrogant letter from Jan Coen. He suggested that all the ships sail together in a mini-armada, and set off in January 1616 on what was to prove one of the most bizarre English expeditions ever to reach the Banda Islands. This was largely due to the eccentricities of its commander whose behaviour left the Dutch both puzzled and bemused. Castleton had already caused raised eyebrows among the Company directors in London after trumpeting his unorthodox methods for preserving the health of his sailors. These included the daily baking of fresh bread on board his ships, the manual grinding of corn which he considered 'an exercise fit to preserve men in health' and the distilling of fresh water from salt by means of an elaborate system of stills and furnaces. Had this worked, he intended that each of his vessels would have its own mobile desalination plant. Unfortunately it proved a complete failure, his crew still died, and Castleton concluded that it was their own fault since they were all confirmed alcoholics.

By the time his fleet arrived off Ai Island a new Dutch armada under the command of Admiral Lam had anchored in the shadow of Fort Nassau. Lam had come in even greater numbers than his predecessor: a fleet of twelve ships and more than a thousand soldiers who were shortly joined by a second fleet and military reinforcements. For a few days they watched the English ships lurking around Ai and Run Islands before Lam realised that both islands were being fortified and that on Run the English were building some sort of castle. He immediately ordered his men to prepare for a full-scale invasion of Ai, but scarcely had their squadron of ships set sail from Neira than they discovered they had a fight on their hands. Castleton had manoeuvred his five vessels into the deep channel separating the two islands, blocking access to Ai. A few shots were fired and the men were about to do battle when a curious incident brought the fighting to an abrupt halt. Castleton, it seems, had only just learned the name of the Dutch commander and, despatching a rowing boat over to Lam's ship, he offered his compliments to the commander and explained that he, an Englishman, was so deeply grateful for a service Lam had once rendered him that he was unable to bring himself to continue with the battle. To an astonished Lam he added that he was ordering his vessels to withdraw and apologised for any offence he might have caused.