Nathaniel's nutmeg (14 page)

The few regulations imposed upon this first trading
expedition were drawn up by the merchants rather than
the Crown. Lancaster was warned to be on his guard
against any sailors who attempted to dabble in private trade
and told that 'due inquisition shall be made into all and
every ship, by search of all chests, boxes, packs, packets,
writing, and other means whereby discovery may be made
of this breach of present ordenance'. Unfortunately, this
stricture proved impossible to enforce. Individual sailors
were paid next to nothing for the long and hazardous
voyage and many set sail with the full intention of
smuggling home a sackful or two of nutmeg.

The Queen coined new money specifically for the
Company. Minted at the Tower of London and bearing her
arms on one side and a portcullis on the other, it soon
became known as portcullis money. She also granted the
merchants a new flag which, with its blue field and
background of thirteen red and white stripes, prefigured
the one adopted by the Thirteen Colonies of America
some 175 years later.

On a cold February day in 1601, Lancaster's five ships
slipped slowly down the Thames. They made a colourful
sight as they passed the wharves at Woolwich. Bedecked
with streamers, pennants and colourful bunting, they flew
from their main mast the blood-red cross of St George.
The banks of the river were lined with merchants, relatives
and well-wishers, a crowd and a send-off not repeated
until 1610 when Nathaniel Courthope would leave
London on the greatest sailing ship ever built by the East
India Company.

Scarcely had Lancaster's vessels reached the Thames
Estuary than the wind dropped and for almost two months
the sails hung loose. It was not until Easter that his
fleet finally reached Dartmouth. Delayed again at Torbay,
Lancaster sent instructions to each of the ships listing ports
and harbours where they should rendezvous in the event of
becoming separated. And then, with the wind once more
filling their sails, the ships set off down the English Channel
and had an uneventful passage all the way to Gran Canaria.

Here, the wind again died and for more than a month
the fleet floated idly at sea, inching slowly towards the
equator. Just two degrees short of the line Lancaster
had a stroke of good fortune. A lone Portuguese ship,
accidentally separated from her accompanying carracks,
was spied on the horizon. The five English vessels circled
her then closed for the kill. She was boarded, her crew
disarmed and a team of men sent down into the hold. She
proved to be a very rich prize: she was laden with 146
butts of wine and 176 jars of oil and her captured cargo
was shared out among the English ships according to the
number of men on board. And then, without further ado,
they set sail once again.

As with Lancaster's first voyage men began to fall sick as
soon as they crossed into the southern hemisphere and it
was not long before 'the weakness of men was so great that
in some of the ships the merchants took their turn at the
helm and went into the top to take in the topsails.' But
while men grew weaker on the smaller vessels, the diarist
on board Lancaster's
Red Dragon
could not help noticing
that her crew were completely immune to the illness. 'And
the reason why the general's men stood in better health
than the men of other ships was this; he [Lancaster] brought
to sea with him certain bottles of the juice of lemons,
which he gave to each one, as long as it would last, three
spoonfuls every morning, fasting; not suffering them to eat
anything after it till noon ... by this means the general
cured many of his men and preserved the rest.' How
Lancaster stumbled upon the cure for scurvy remains a
mystery; it may be that he noticed the spectacular recovery
that men made as soon as they were able to add fresh fruit
and vegetables to their diet of salted food. On his first
voyage the on-board chronicler Henry May had observed
that one particularly ill crew member had made a full
recovery after eating the oranges and lemons found on St
Helena. Tragically Lancaster's cure was soon forgotten and
more than 170 years were to pass before Captain Cook
rediscovered the beneficial effects of citrus fruit in
combating scurvy.

Although scurvy and sickness were a constant concern,
life on board had its lighter moments. Journals and diaries
make frequent mention of the play-acting, singing and
clowning around that enlivened the tedium of the voyage.
Music was extremely popular and on one vessel 'a virginal
was brought for two to play upon at once.' This proved a
great success for no sooner had the music commenced than
'the jacks skip up and down in such a manner as they will.'
A later expedition even boasted a cornet player who used
to regularly play for his colleagues. So accomplished was he
at the instrument, and so wide was his repertoire, that on
arriving in India he found himself blowing his brass for the
Great Moghul himself.

The merry-making was helped along by the huge
quantities of alcohol consumed by the crew. Although
attempts were made to regulate the drinking, it was
universally ignored until men began to drop dead of liver
disorders caused by the 'inordinate drinking of a wine
called tastie [toddy] distilled from the palmetto tree'.

After merry-making their way across the southern
Atlantic, Lancaster's expedition finally slipped into South
Africa's Table Bay on 9 September 1601, where the
commander knew he could barter for fresh meat and
provisions. As had happened on his first voyage the crew
viewed the natives as wild barbarians who were laughably
easy to exploit. Neither side was able to communicate with
each other for, 'their speech is wholly uttered through the
throat, and they cluck with their tongues in such sort that,
in seven weeks which we remained here in this place, the
sharpest wit among us could not learn one word of their
language.'

Instead, the English sailors 'spake to them in the cattle's
language'. When they wanted to buy oxen they would say
'moo'. When they wanted sheep, they would say 'baa'. The
animals cost next to nothing: the natives did not demand
silver or gold but seemed content with a couple of old iron
hoops. After twelve days, the ship's company had bought
more than a thousand sheep and several dozen oxen.

When his ships finally set sail Lancaster must have been
pleased that his time in Table Bay had passed without
incident. Aware that this was an essential revictualling
point for ships heading east he did everything possible to
ensure that negotiations with the natives progressed
smoothly. Such a policy was in stark contrast to that of Cornells Houtman who had treated the natives of
southern Africa with brutality and paid for it with the loss
of thirteen crew.

Although every inch of space on the vessels was taken
up with fresh supplies, the hot southern climate was still
taking its toll on the crew and it was decided to land at the

island of Cirne — now known as Mauritius — where
lemons were said to be plentiful.

Unfortunately, the wind
unexpectedly changed direction and the little fleet was
blown towards Madagascar instead. Arriving on Christmas
Day in the bay of Atongill a reconnaissance party
discovered a series of carvings on a rock close to the water.
It had long been the practice to carve upon rocks the dates
of arrival and departure of ships so that straggling vessels
might know the fate of the rest of their fleet. From these
carvings, Lancaster discovered to his dismay that five
Dutch ships had called here just two months earlier. They
had lost more than two hundred men to dysentery while
they lay at anchor.

History soon began to repeat itself on the English ships.
First the
Red Dragons
master's mate died, then the
preacher, the surgeon, and ten crew members. Others
suffered more violent deaths: as the master's mate was
lowered into the ground, the captain of the
Ascension
rowed ashore to attend the funeral. While doing so, he had
the misfortune to enter the line of musket-shot that was
frequently fired on such occasions and both he and the
boatswain's mate were killed,'so that they that went to see
the buriall of another,' records the ship's diarist, 'and were
both buried there themselves'.

It was a most unfortunate accident; Captain William
Brund was popular among the sea dogs he commanded
and was sorely missed. His death reinforced the growing
feeling that Madagascar was not a place to linger, so as
soon as the
Red Dragons
little pinnace had been assembled
(it was brought out from England in kit form) the fleet
once more set sail.

The expanse of the Indian Ocean presented Lancaster
with fewer problems than the Atlantic. A near-catastrophe
was avoided when the pinnace detected the reefs and shoals
surrounding the Chagos Archipelago and by the second
week of May the ships had caught sight of the remote
Nicobar Islands — missed on Lancaster's first voyage —
where they resolved to revictual. To their surprise they
discovered that the fantastical writings of medieval
travellers, which spoke of men with horns and green faces,
appeared to be correct. According to the ship's journal, the
island priest 'had upon his head a pair of horns turning
backward', while others had 'their faces painted green,
black, and yellow, and their horns also painted with the
same colour; and behind them, upon their buttocks, a tail
hanging down, very much like the manner as in some
painted clothes we paint the devil in our country'.