Nathaniel's nutmeg (16 page)

Lancaster sent the
Susan
to the port of Priaman on
Sumatra's southern coast while he, together with the rest of
the fleet, sailed into the Straits. Almost immediately he
spied a huge Portuguese carrack heading for Malacca and
opened fire with the
Red Dragons
great guns. Six
cannonballs were all it took to disable her; her main yard
was split in two and crashed onto the deck with a
tremendous boom. Completely marooned, the
Santo
Antonio
gave up the fight and surrendered to the English.
When Lancaster saw what he had captured he rubbed his
eyes in disbelief: she was laden with Indian calicoes and
batiks which, though almost valueless in England, were
worth a small fortune in the ports of South-East Asia. Here,
at last, was something which could readily be exchanged
for nutmeg, cloves and pepper.

It took a full six days to unload the
Santo Antonio
and, by
the time all her goods were stowed aboard the English ships, Lancaster realised it was imperative that he found a
supply depot, a base for future trading, where the cloth
could be stored. Achin, he now knew, was useless for
although an important centre for trade it was not the
source of the spices he was seeking. He decided to head for
the spice port of Bantam on the north-west coast of Java,
but thought it diplomatic to first return to Ala-uddin to bid
him farewell.

The Sultan congratulated Lancaster on his success
against the Portuguese, ‘and jestingly said he had forgotten
the most important business that he requested at his hands,
which was the fair Portugal maiden he desired him to
bring with him at his return. To whom the general
[Lancaster] answered that there was none so worthy that
merited to be so presented. Therewithall the king smiled
and said: if there be anything here in my kingdom may
pleasure thee, I would be glad to gratify thy goodwill.'

The request for maidens was not an unusual one among
the potentates of the East. To ensure their harems retained
an international flavour, they liked to procure youthful
damsels from as far afield as possible. Ala-uddin's successor
took his harem very seriously indeed and put in a request
to London for an English rose or two. This put the
Company's puritanical merchants into something of a
quandary: if they sent two girls they would be seen to be
condoning bigamy and that was unthinkable. There was
also the problem of religion. Achin was an Islamic country
and there was a theological objection to uniting a good
Christian girl in holy matrimony with a Mohammedan.
Ironically, the directors' most difficult task — that of finding
a suitable virgin — was easily overcome. A London
gentleman 'of honourable parentage' offered his daughter
without further ado. She was, he explained, 'of excellent
parts for musicke, her needle, and good discourse, also very
beautiful and personable'. He even wrote a lengthy tract
justifying mixed marriages. What the girl in question
thought about all this has unfortunately not been recorded
but she probably heaved a sigh of relief when King James I
declined to sanction the presentation of such an
unorthodox gift.

Lancaster was on the brink of departing from Achin
when the increasingly eccentric Ala-uddin had an even
stranger request. He asked the English captain if he
possessed a book of the Psalms of David and, as soon as a
copy had been produced, begged Lancaster that he and his
court might sing one as a duet. This done, the Sultan
wished the English crew his best wishes for the rest of their
voyage. His last act was to present Lancaster with a letter
addressed to Queen Elizabeth I and written in fine Arabic
calligraphy. So magnificent was this calligraphy, in fact, that
its eventual translator, Reverend William Bedwell of St
Ethelburga's in Bishopgate Street, could scarcely read it. He
did eventually produce a draft in English. It was absurdly
grandiose and full of hyperbole and Queen Elizabeth was
given a string of honorific titles. By the time the letter
arrived back in England, she was no longer alive to read it.

Lancaster's fleet sailed from Achin in November 1602.
The
Ascension,
by now fully laden with pepper and spice, set
course for England while the rest of the ships headed
towards Java, meeting with the
Susan
on the way. She had
fared well in the port of Priaman and her captain had
bought a large stock of spices for an extremely competitive
price: in Bantam, Lancaster was to find the prices lower still.

Bantam's king was a boy of ten or eleven years. After
showing him all the usual courtesies and presenting the
customary gifts, Lancaster turned to his Protector to settle
the finer points of trade. The English merchants were
cordially received and prices for pepper and spice were
fixed. A 'factory' or warehouse was established so that the
English could unload their wares, and commerce was
begun with enthusiasm. A problem of local thieving
threatened to sour the buying and selling, but after
Lancaster had slaughtered six robbers - a right he had been
granted by the Protector - the thieving halted completely.

For five weeks spices were bought and bartered until
two hundred and thirty sackfuls had been loaded onto the
ships and there was not an inch of space left on board. The
local natives were particularly curious to know why the English required such huge quantities of pepper and there
was much scratching of heads until it was finally agreed
that English houses were so cold that the walls were
plastered with crushed pepper in order to produce heat.

One sad episode marred the stay in Bantam. The languid
heat was taking its toll on the men who had gone ashore,
while those who remained on their vessels, including
Captain John Middleton, 'fell sicke aboord his ship in the
road'. Middleton's fever grew steadily worse until
Lancaster, himself not well, became alarmed. Paying a visit
to his old friend, he watched Middleton pace slowly up and
down the deck, growing weaker with every step. That
night, the
Hector
lost its captain and Middleton was buried
at Bantam. The crew, though used to the sight of death,
wept openly.

It was time to depart for England. Lancaster was aware
that if trade between England and the East Indies was to
succeed it was essential to establish a permanent base in the
East. So, shortly before setting sail, he appointed eight men
and three 'factors' or merchants to stay behind in Bantam,
leaving in their charge all the goods he had so far been
unable to sell.

He had also realised that the price of spices fell sharply
the further east he sailed. The prices in Achin were
astronomical while in Bantam they were much lower. He
was certain that if he had been able to sail even further east,
to the Banda Islands, the very source of nutmeg, those
prices would dip still further. Before he left Bantam
Lancaster therefore instructed the men staying behind to
sail eastwards in the forty-ton pinnace left in their charge
and buy as much nutmeg, mace and cloves as was possible.

In February 1603, the fleet set sail for England with a
thunderous blast from their cannon. The first half of the
return voyage proved remarkably uneventful and it was not
until the ships reached Madagascar that they were buffeted
by their first storm which so smashed their ships 'that they
were leakie all the voyage after'.Two weeks later they were
hit by a 'very sore storme which continued all the night,
and the seas did so beate upon the ships quarter that it
shooke all the iron-worke of her rudder'. Huge waves
raged around the ships, lashing their weakened hulls and
allowing water to seep into the holds. Early on the
morning of the fourth the rudder of the
Red Dragon
'brake
cleane from the sterne of our shippe and presently sunke
into the sea'. Unable to steer,'our ship drove up and downe
in the sea like a wrecke, which way soever the wind carried
her.' Every attempt to make a new rudder failed and, as the
rain turned to 'hayle and snow and sleetie cold weather',
the men began to abandon all hope of surviving. 'It was a
great miserie unto us,' wrote one, 'that pinched us
exceeding sore, so that our case was miserable and very
desperate.' Even Lancaster felt the end was near.
Descending into his cabin, he penned a letter to the
Company in London, a letter whose unfailing spirit would
become legendary among the sailors of the East India
Company. 'I cannot tell where you should looke for me,' he
wrote, 'because I live at the devotion of the winds and seas.'
And then, sending the letter over to the
Hector,
he bade her
head for England leaving his own ship to her fate. The
Hectors
captain refused and shadowed the
Red Dragon
until
the storm finally abated. And so, side by side, the ships sailed
first to St Helena and then into the English Channel.