Nathaniel's nutmeg Page 6

  Linschoten's account and Plancius's maps convinced the three merchants that the time was now right to send an expedition to the East. Yet still they hesitated, deciding to await the return of a spy they had sent to Lisbon, a headstrong man named Cornelis Houtman whose unstable temperament was to cause so much trouble in the future. Exactly what Houtman discovered in Lisbon is not known, but it convinced the merchants that there was no time to be lost in entering the spice race and, 'after many discussions, it was finally resolved that, in the Name of God, a beginning should be made with the navigation and other affairs.' Six more merchants were summoned to help finance the project, four ships were built, and cannon were borrowed from various towns. Embarrassingly, not enough firearms could be found and an agent had to be despatched to England to buy some extra weaponry.

  In stark contrast to the English expeditions, the Dutch voyage was meticulously planned. The ships were equipped with spare masts, anchors and cables and the begrudging pilots were compelled to have lessons in navigation from Petrus Plancius: 'five days a week, from Monday till Friday, from nine in the morning until five in the evening'. But in common with all the English voyages prior to that of James Lancaster, save that of Sir Francis Drake, the Dutch merchants made one critical mistake: they put unsuitable and inadequate men in command.

  One of these was Cornells Houtman, the very man whose clandestine activities in Lisbon had helped get the project off the ground. As a spy he was in his element; as a leader of men he was a disaster. Houtman was given the important post of chief merchant on the Mauritius which, had it been his only job, would have limited his potential to cause mischief. Unfortunately, he was also given a place on the ships' council with a special status that allowed him to speak first on any issue.

  Setting sail in the spring of 1595, the expedition's four vessels headed first for the Cape Verde Islands in the mid- Atlantic and then set sail towards the equator. Here they entered the doldrums, drifting across the ocean for almost a month before the coastline of Brazil was sighted. From here, the ships changed course with the trade winds and let themselves be carried back towards southern Africa.

  Many of the men were by now desperately sick and, as the ships rounded the Cape, good hope proved elusive for the seventy-one sailors who succumbed to scurvy. Worse still, discipline broke down completely as simmering discontent exploded into outright warfare. In normal circumstances, such unruly behaviour would have been treated with the utmost severity. According to a Dutch code of discipline, any fight that drew blood would result in the antagonist having one hand strapped behind his back and the other nailed to the mast. There he would remain until he tore himself lose. If the fight ended in death, the man was bound to his victim and tossed into the sea. Even pulling a knife in jest was a serious misdemeanour — the offender would suffer three lengthy dunkings from the yardarm. Refusing to obey the captain commanded the death penalty; desertion was rewarded with flogging, and the most serious offences were dealt with by keel-hauling — a terrible punishment which involved being hauled underneath the keel while the ship was moving. In the majority of cases, the victim's head was ripped off.

  None of these deterred the crew of this pioneering Dutch expedition from indulging in the most violent and brutal behaviour. The troubles began when the skipper of the Amsterdam died of scurvy and the ship's chief merchant, a hothead named Gerrit van Beuningen, assumed control. The ships' council was furious and accused Beuningen of a series of crimes, including an attempt on the life of Cornelis Houtman, and demanded he be hanged from the ship's mast without further ado. Others supported Beuningen and vowed to defend him with force. Calmer counsel eventually prevailed and the merchant was clapped in irons instead. History has failed to record whether or not he regretted his action, but he was certainly given time to repent. When the Amsterdam finally arrived back in Holland two years later, Beuningen was still in irons.

  Discipline now broke down completely and it was only when the ships reached Sumatra that the men called a temporary truce and patched up their quarrels. As they sailed through the shallow coastal waters, the natives rowed out in dug-out canoes and exchanged rice, water-melons and sugar-canes for glass beads and trinkets. Fresh food and water helped, to heal the rifts but it was not long before new quarrels began. On arriving at the wealthy port of Bantam in Java, Houtman had hoped to buy spices for a song and was incensed when he discovered the prices to be sky-high. Worse still, all native authority in the town had disappeared as rival traders bickered and courtiers fought for possession of the throne.

  Such an explosive situation was doomed to end in disaster. Angered by the escalating price of spices, Houtman lost his temper. 'And thus,' wrote one of the crew in a terrifyingly matter-of-fact entry in his journal, 'it was decided to do all possible harm to the town.' What followed was an orgy of destruction that was to set the pattern for the Dutch presence in the East Indies. The town was bombarded with cannon fire and prisoners were sentenced to death. A brief pause in the fighting allowed the Dutch commanders to debate the different means of disposing of prisoners (the choice was to stab them, shoot them with arrows, or blow them from cannons - unfortunately, no one recorded which method they settled for) and once this thorny question was resolved the battering continued. At one point the king's palace was hit; at another, a group of newly captured prisoners were tortured. 'And after we had revenged ourselves to the approval of our ship's officers,' wrote the same crew member, 'we prepared to set sail.' The ships proceeded to the nearby port of Sidayu where they were surprised by a group of Javanese natives who boarded the Amsterdam and hacked twelve men to death, including the skipper, before finding themselves under attack. The Dutch 'then chased the natives back to the shore in our own rowing boats and executed the Javanese who had killed our colleagues'. Few paused to question why everyone was acting with such brutality. The voice of conscience is never loud in the journals of sixteenth- century mariners but one crew member did wonder why his fellow tradesmen had suddenly become such bloodthirsty cut-throats. 'There was nothing missing and everything was perfect except what was wrong with ourselves,' he wrote.

  Events were to prove that the killing had scarcely begun. As the Dutch ships passed Madura, a low-lying island off the Javanese coast, the local prince (not yet privy to the events in Bantam) decided to put on a display of friendship, welcoming the Hollanders with a little flotilla of native prahus. The oarsmen rowed slowly and ceremoniously towards the Dutch vessels and at the centre of their display was a magnificent barge decorated with an elevated bridge on which stood the local prince, smiling broadly.

  The Dutch grew agitated as more and more natives rowed out to the ships. Some whispered that it was an ambush; others were convinced there was treachery afoot and argued for a pre-emptive strike. Houtman agreed and, relying on the time-honoured principal that the best defence is attack, his ship 'opened fire and killed all on the big boat'. It was the signal for a general massacre. Within minutes, dozens of cannon were being fired into the flotilla, sinking boats and slaughtering the welcome party. No sooner had the floating parade been blasted out of the water than the Dutchmen lowered their rowing boats and concluded the day's business with hand-to-hand fighting. By the end of the battle, all but twenty natives were dead, among them the prince whose body was relieved of its jewels before being returned to a watery grave. 'I watched the attack not without pleasure,' admitted one Dutch sailor, 'but also with shame.'

  The ships and crew were by now in a pitiful condition. Rival factions were at each other's throats while the various commanders — of whom Houtman was in the ascendant — were scarcely on speaking terms. Hundreds of men had died and those who were still alive were suffering from tropical diseases picked up at Bantam. Worse still, the ships themselves were in a sorry state of disrepair. Bearded with marine growth and encrusted with barnacles, they looked as if they had been raised from the depths of the ocean. Many were honeycombed with teredos (shipworms) which bored through the Dutch oak and allowed water t
o filter through the holes. On deck the tropical sun had so dried the timbers that the gaps between the planks were more than half an inch wide.

  Then there was the question of spices. Despite many months at sea, Houtman had so far failed to buy any spices apart from the tiny quantity acquired when his ships first arrived in Sumatra. Having rejected trade with the merchants of Bantam, the Dutch were fast running out of suitable marketplaces.

  A plan of action had to be made and a decision taken. Houtman argued that they should sail east to the Banda Islands where they were assured of a cargo of nutmeg at a reasonable price. But the captain of the Mauritius, Jan Meulenaer, disagreed. He said that the ships were virtually unseaworthy and that to make such a long voyage would be risking almost certain death. In the event, death came to Meulenaer rather sooner than he expected. Just hours after a particularly ferocious argument with Houtman he collapsed on deck and expired. There could be no doubt that there had been foul play. Two of the ships' on-board barbers proclaimed in front of the council that Meulenaer 'was completely blue and purple; poisoned blood came not only from his mouth but from his neck as well; and even his hair fell out at the slightest touch. A child,' they concluded, 'could tell he had been poisoned.'

  A murder. A motive. And a body. It did not take long to find the suspect. The crew of the Mauritius accused Houtman of murder and promptly clapped him in irons. They then summoned the ships' council to convene for a second time and asked it to condemn him to death. But in this last demand they were to be disappointed for the council reasoned that there was insufficient evidence to execute Houtman and he was released.

  The ships' crews now decided to abandon their quest for spices and sail for home. The Amsterdam was so rotten that she was emptied of supplies and set on fire. Then, making a final stop at Bali in order to take advantage of the amorous charms of local girls - and leaving behind two men who found those charms irresistible - the Dutch set sail for home.

  When they finally reached Amsterdam more than two years had passed and two out of every three men on board had died. For the merchants who had financed the voyage the lack of spices was far more galling than the lack of men. They watched the ships' return to port fully expecting them to be laden with nutmeg, cloves and pepper. As it was, the cargo unloaded on that August day was silver reals - the same reals that they had watched being loaded two years previously. Incredibly, the price of spices had become so inflated while the ships had been in the East Indies that the tiny quantity Houtman carried home was enough to make the venture a profitable one. Had he been a more responsible commander he could have netted them a fortune.

  The troubles that had plagued Hollands inaugural voyage to the East did little to deter Amsterdam's merchants from risking yet more of their money in the spice race. They argued that they had met with far greater success than the English who had not only lost two ships on their first expedition, one more than theirs, but had failed so far to reach the spice port of Bantam.

  Less than seven months after Houtman's return, the merchants placed this unruly commander in charge of a second Dutch expedition to the East Indies, signalling that they had learned nothing from the mistakes of the previous voyage. But if Houtman was not up to the job, the chief pilot was more than qualified. His name was John Davis and he was an Englishman from Devon. A brilliant navigator, whose pioneering Arctic explorations had already carried him to the frozen shores of Greenland, he not only guided the ships to the East Indies and back, but also kept detailed notes on every coastline, port and harbour. Within weeks of completing the long voyage, Davis was hired for a second trip. But this time he was sailing on an English vessel under the command of the veteran James Lancaster. And this time, the two men were sailing as servants of the newly founded East India Company.

  chapter three

  Music and

  Dancing Damsels

  On the evening of 24 September 1599, a loud cheer was heard coming from the half-timbered Founders Hall in London's Lothbury Street. For much of the day the city's merchant adventurers had been deep in discussion about sending a new fleet of ships to the East Indies. Now they had at last reached a decision. With a unanimous show of hands and a roar of excitement it was decided to apply to Queen Elizabeth I for her assent to a project that was 'intended for the honour of our native country and for the advancement of trade of merchandise within this realm of England'.

  No painting survives to record the scene behind the mullioned windows of Founders Hall on that September evening but with the Company scribe recording every last detail for posterity it is not hard to assemble a picture of the historic events unfolding. Some fourscore men had gathered to discuss the practicalities of the intended voyage. These were not aristocrats nor landowners, nor were they members of the courtly circle; most were merchants and burghers, men who made their living by speculating on trading ventures.

  Some of the leading lights in this new enterprise had considerable experience of international trade. Richard Staper and Thomas Smythe, for example, had been principal founders of the Levant Company and had helped to build a successful business in the eastern Mediterranean. Others, like Sir John Hart and Richard Cockayne were well-known faces in the City of London. Three of the men had held office as Lord Mayor of London and the chairman of the meeting, splendidly dressed in wig and robes, was Sir Stephen Soane, the present occupant of the Lord Mayorship.

  Not all were merchants: among the aldermen and freemen of the London guilds were sailors and soldiers, bearded and weather-beaten sea dogs who wore gold rings in their ears and good-luck amulets about their necks. James Lancaster and John Davis could be seen among the crowds and so, too, could Francis Pretty, close friend of Thomas Cavendish. A few of Drake's crew pitched up for the meeting, as did some who had sailed with Fenton and Hawkins. Arctic explorer William Baffin put in an appearance as did the three Middleton brothers - John, Henry and David - who would all meet with disasters on the long voyage to and from the Spice Islands.

  Such men were crucial to the success or failure of this, the Company's first venture. They were familiar with the sight of Portuguese carracks laden with costly spices and knew the best ports to obtain fresh water and new provisions. They also knew that although the Spanish and Portuguese had a vigorous commerce with the East, only a dozen or so ports were under their direct control. These were scattered over a huge area from Madagascar to Japan, and even Goa, the jewel in the crown of Portugal's eastern outposts, only housed a small settlement of traders and merchants. It scarcely deserved its suffix - dorado. In the 'riche and innumerable islands of the Mollucos and the Spiceries', where nutmeg and cloves could be had for a song, the Portuguese influence was spread even more thinly.They had just two small forts on the islands ofTidore and Amboyna, leaving dozens of other atolls and skerries to be claimed, remote places like the nutmeg-producing Banda Islands.

  Since it had become an axiom in international law that European nations could only claim such places as they had fortified or in which they had erected some visible symbol of possession, there were many who argued that it would make sense to head for these lonely outposts of the Spice Islands. If the flag could be raised in the Banda Islands, for instance, then England would have a toehold in the richest of all the islands in the East Indies.

  When everyone had had the chance to speak Sir Stephen Soane called the meeting to order. There were important matters to be settled, not least of which was to prevent the large sum of money which had been subscribed just two days earlier from being contributed in any form other than cash. It was also decided to entrust the day-to-day running of the Company to fifteen directors who would organise and regulate the forthcoming voyage.

  It was late by the time the meeting finally broke up. The sailors and adventurers trudged their way back to their homes in Shoreditch and Wapping, the merchants to their gabled dwellings in Charing Cross and Lincoln's Inn Fields. All must have felt that at long last they were on the brink of partaking in a successful trading enterprise
to the East Indies.

  To those subscribers who had gambled their money on the voyage there were huge riches to be had if it ended in success. Elizabethan London was home to an affluent aristocracy who clamoured for every luxury. Queen

  Elizabeth herself determined the fashion of the age with her famous wardrobe of three thousand dresses, and the ladies of the court followed suit, cloaking themselves in brocades and satins trimmed with costly laces, sables and embroideries. The Queen loved the pomp, ceremony and luxuries that her state afforded her. In her palaces at St James, Greenwich, Windsor and Hampton Court she was surrounded by baubles, trinkets and precious objets d'art, as well as a magnificent library of Greek and Latin poets, richly bound in velvet.

  Some of her more puritanical ministers reacted against the wanton extravagance of her court. At the wedding of one member of the aristocracy the celebrant priest, dismayed by the sight of so much finery, decided to speak his mind. Aware, perhaps, of the moves afoot for a great expedition to the East, he clambered into the pulpit and delivered a damning but topical sermon about the fripperies of Elizabethan fashion. 'Of all qualities,' he said, 'a woman must not have one quality, and that is too much rigging. What a wonder to see a ship under full sail, with her tackling and her masts, and her tops and top-gallants, with her upper deck and her nether decks, and so be-dekt with her streamers, flags, and ensigns ...' Pausing to survey the assembled ladies he continued: 'what a world of wonders it is to see a woman, created in God's image, so miscreate oft times with her French, her Spanish, and her foolish fashions, that He ... shall hardly know her with her plumes, her faunes, and a silken vizard, with a ruffle like a saile.'