THE INTEREST WHICH NATURALLY ATTACHES TO THE FIRST VOYAGE UNDER AN EAST INDIA CHARTER

The interest which naturally attaches to the first voyage under an East India charter, will justify a larger detail than would be due to the incidents themselves, which are comparatively uninteresting. The Red Dragon, Hector, Ascension, and Susan, already mentioned, together with the Guest, of 130 tons, added as a victualler, left Woolwich on the 13th of February, 1601, but were so long detained by contrary winds and the completion of arrangements at Dartmouth, that they were not able to quit the English coast till the 22nd of April, when they sailed for the Canaries. While off the coast of Guinea they fell in with a Portuguese ship, outward bound, and took and plundered her. Having afterwards unloaded the Guest of the victuals which they had been unable to take on board when they sailed from England, they dismantled her, broke down her upper works for firewood, and left her a floating hulk. During their long delay in the English Channel, they had lost the opportunity of making a quick voyage; and began to suffer from scurvy, which prevailed to such an extent, that some of the vessels had not hands enough to manage them, and the merchants on board were obliged to act as common seamen. On the 9th of September they reached Saldanha Bay, where the sick rapidly recovered; the previous mortality, however, had been so great, that the number of deaths amounted to 105, or more than a fifth of the whole crews. On Sunday, the 1st of November, the Cape was doubled: and they proceeded northwards along the east coast of Madagascar, where a new attack of scurvy again proved very fatal, and obliged them to spend some time on shore in the Bay of Antongil. On continuing their voyage across the Indian Ocean, they arrived, on the 9th of May, 1602, at the Nicobar Islands, without having seen any part of the continent of India. After a short stay they set sail for the island of Sumatra; and, on the 6th of June, cast anchor in the road of Acheen, on the north-west extremity of that island. Here they found about eighteen vessels from Bengal, Malabar, Gujarat, and other quarters, and were visited by two Dutch merchants, who had been left to learn the language and manners of the country. Everything gave indication of a hospitable reception; and a deputation was immediately sent ashore, to announce that the commander of the fleet was bearer of a letter from the most famous Queen of England to the most worthy King of Acheen and Sumatra. The day after his arrival, Lancaster himself went ashore, and, having been conducted with great ceremony to the king’s presence, delivered his letter, and along with it a present of considerable value.

The interview was of the most amicable nature; and ultimately a treaty was formed, in which the leading privileges obtained by the English were, perfect freedom of trade, protection to life and property, the power of administering justice among their own countrymen according to English law, and full liberty of conscience. But while the natives displayed this friendly spirit, all the proceedings of the English were watched with the utmost jealousy by a third party. The Portuguese had an ambassador at Acheen, and it soon became apparent that he was determined to leave no means untried to prevent the establishment of a trade, which he naturally regarded as an unjustifiable invasion of the Portuguese monopoly. Attempts to prejudice the king having failed, he determined on open hostility, and with that view despatched messengers to Malacca, to inform the authorities in the Portuguese settlement there of the arrival of the English ships, and urge the necessity of immediately sending a sufficient force to capture them. Fortunately his plans were discovered; and his messengers having been apprehended, the Portuguese in Malacca were not even made aware that the English had arrived.

Lancaster determined to turn this ignorance to good account; and, leaving the Susan, which had been sent round to Priaman, on the south coast of the island, to take in a cargo of pepper, set out with his other three vessels, and a Dutch ship of about 200 tons, which had obtained permission to join him, on a privateering cruise to the Straits of Malacca. Such an expedition was certainly little in accordance with the purely mercantile spirit in which the voyage had been professedly undertaken, and goes far to justify the account given by Sir William Monson, who says, in his Naval Tracts,[^1] that Lancaster’s “employment was as well to take by violence as to trade by sufferance;” and adds that this was “unworthy the name of an honest design, for the hands of merchants should not be stained or polluted with theft, for in such case all people would have liberty to do the like upon them.” The English commander was not restrained by any scruples of this nature, and, when a large Portuguese ship made her appearance, somewhat grotesquely expressed his thankfulness to Providence for having thus furnished him with the means of lading his ships, and supplying all his other wants. Though the ship was of 900 tons burden, and had above 600 persons on board, the capture was easily effected. It proved a carrack, bound for Malacca, from St. Thome, a Portuguese factory on the Coromandel coast, and so fully freighted that Lancaster, after occupying all the vacant room in his own vessels with calicoes, pintados, and other merchandise, was puzzled how to dispose of the residue, which would have sufficed to lade as many more ships if he had had them. Ultimately he resolved to return to Acheen, where he ingratiated himself still further with the king by liberal presents of the prize goods, and deposited what he could not take with him, to await the arrival of a new fleet from England.

On leaving Acheen on the 9th of November, the Ascension, in which all the pepper, cinnamon, and cloves which had previously been purchased, were loaded, was despatched for England. The Dragon and Hector continued their course in an opposite direction along the south coast of Sumatra to Priaman, where the Susan was found taking in her cargo. Leaving her with orders to sail homewards as soon as it was completed, Lancaster proceeded with the other two vessels through the Straits of Sunda, and, on the 16th of December, arrived in the road of Bantam, on the north-west extremity of the island of Java. Here, after the delivery of the queen’s letter and a handsome present, his reception was as favourable as it had been at Acheen; and he found no difficulty in disposing of his prize goods to such advantage, that he had soon sold more than would pay for the lading of both the ships. By the 10th of February full cargoes of pepper were taken in; and on the 20th, after a regular factory had been established at Bantam, and a pinnace despatched to the Moluccas, for the purpose of attempting to secure a trade which might be available to the next ships from England, he took his final departure.

The voyage home was very stormy; and the Dragon, in particular, having lost her rudder, became so unmanageable, that Lancaster privately gave orders to the Hector, which had hitherto kept by him, to continue her voyage and leave him to his fate. It must be confessed, that in taking this step he displayed singular resolution and devotedness. At the time when he gave what he believed to be his final orders to the captain of the Hector, he hastily addressed a letter to his employers in the following terms:

“Right Worshipful,—What hath passed in this voyage, and what trades I have settled for this Company, and what other events have befallen us, you shall understand by the bearers hereof, to whom (as occasion hath happened) I must refer you. I will strive with all diligence to save my ship and her goods, as you may perceive by the course I take in venturing my own life, and those that are with me. I cannot tell where you should look for me, if you send out any pinnace to seek me, because I live at the devotion of the winds and seas. And thus fare you well; desiring God to send us a merry meeting in this world, if it be his good will and pleasure.—Your loving Friend,

“James Lancaster.”

The captain of the Hector, unwilling to leave his commander in desperate circumstances, still managed to keep him in sight; and ultimately, after redoubling the Cape of Good Hope during the storm without seeing it, both vessels reached St. Helena. Three months after, on the 11th of September, 1603, they cast anchor in the Downs. The Ascension and Susan had previously arrived; and thus, though numbers of the crews had perished, all the vessels and their cargoes returned safe.

Both as a first experiment under the charter, and in a pecuniary view, the voyage was eminently successful. Two factories at important stations had been established under the most favourable circumstances; and the clear profits, estimated at ninety-five per cent, were nearly as large as the whole capital adventured. It ought to be observed, however, that these profits cannot properly be considered mercantile, as a large portion of them had been obtained, not by legitimate trading, but in the course of a predatory cruise.

Before Lancaster returned Queen Elizabeth had paid the debt of nature; but the deep interest which she took in the proceedings of the Company had previously been manifested by a letter, in which she remonstrated with them for having allowed a second year to pass without entering into a new subscription; and plainly hinted, that “in not following up the business in the manner the Dutch did, it seemed as if little regard was entertained either for her majesty’s honour, or the honour of the country.” Strange to say, the remonstrance proved unavailing, and no preparations were made for a second voyage till the success of the first was actually ascertained.

In the second voyage the same vessels were employed as in the first, but the commands were different—Captain Henry Middleton sailing in the Red Dragon as admiral, and Captain Sufflet in the Hector as vice-admiral. The subscription, which appears to have been mainly advanced by the same parties as before, since both voyages were afterwards entered in one account, amounted to £60,450. Of this sum, the repair, equipment, and provision of the vessels absorbed no less than £48,140, whereas the amount carried out in goods was only £1,142; the remainder was bullion. The very paltry sum allowed for goods may perhaps be accounted for by the large quantity of Portuguese prize goods which Lancaster had left for future sale in the factories of Acheen and Bantam.

The vessels left Gravesend on the 25th of March, 1604; and by this early departure avoiding the blunder by which they had formerly lost the proper season, arrived safely in Bantam Road on the 20th of December following. Here they found six ships and three or four pinnaces belonging to the Dutch, with whom for a time a friendly intercourse was kept up, the Dutch admiral dining aboard the Dragon. At Bantam this intercourse remained undisturbed; and the Hector and Susan having completed their cargoes about the middle of February, 1605, set sail for England. The Red Dragon and Ascension proceeded for the Moluccas, from which the Dutch were then endeavouring to expel the Portuguese. In this having so far succeeded as to compel the surrender of the castle of Amboyna, the Dutch immediately altered their tone to the English, and formally debarred them from trading to that island. On general principles, there is good ground for disputing the exclusive title which the Dutch thus assumed; but it seems impossible to deny that the Company were not the proper parties to call it in question, as they were expressly prohibited, by a clause in their charter, from attempting to establish a trade at any place in the actual possession of any friendly Christian power which should openly object to it. But there were other islands of the Molucca group, to which, as the Dutch could not pretend to be in possession of them, the objection could not apply; and the English vessels were only exercising a right which undoubtedly belonged to them, when they endeavoured to carry on a traffic with Ternate, Tidore, and Banda. Circumstances, however, were unpropitious; and the Dutch, when they did not dare to use force, scrupled not to avail themselves of intrigue and misrepresentation, which were almost equally effectual in securing the great object of their ambition—a complete monopoly of the spice trade.

The Red Dragon and Ascension, after remaining for some time in the Moluccas, though not in company, met again in the road of Bantam, from which they sailed for Europe on the 6th of October, 1605. The Susan, which had sailed some time before, was never heard of; but the other three vessels, the Red Dragon, Hector, and Ascension, after rendezvousing in Saldanha Bay, proceeded home in company, and cast anchor in the Downs on the 6th of May, 1606. Notwithstanding the loss of the Susan the returns were favourable; and the two voyages, thrown, as already mentioned, into one account, nearly doubled the capital which had been adventured in them. It is still necessary, however, in calculating the profit, to remember that a considerable portion of it was derived not from trade, but from privateering; and that the ninety-five per cent said to have been returned was not realized in one year, but after a series of years, partly occupied with the voyages, and partly spun out in long credits allowed to purchasers.

In 1604, shortly after the vessels had sailed on their second voyage, King James I granted a license to Sir Edward Michelborne, whose recommendation by Lord Burleigh for employment by the Company has been already mentioned, to trade to “Cathaia, China, Japan, Corea, and Cambaya, &c.” These counties, though the Company had not yet visited them, are within the limits of their charter, and the license was therefore an interference with the rights conferred by it. It was not, however, so indefensible as it is usually represented. Sir Edward was a member of the Company, and was therefore entitled to the full use of all the privileges which they enjoyed. The intention, no doubt, was that a joint stock should have been established, but the attempt had as yet failed; and the voyages hitherto made, though carried on in the name of the Company, were truly for the benefit only of individual adventurers. In these circumstances, it might have been made a question whether every member was not entitled to claim a similar privilege in his own name, and for his own behoof. Even assuming that the affirmative of this question could not be maintained, another important consideration remains behind. The crown only renounced the right of granting a license “without the consent” of the Company; and before it can be said, with Bruce, that “this license was a direct violation of the exclusive privileges granted by Queen Elizabeth to the London East India Company,” it must be shown not only that the license was given, but that the Company refused to consent. The probability is that they were not consulted on the subject; but, knowing that they had the power of objecting, if, from prudential considerations, they refrained from exercising it, they foreclosed themselves, and were not afterwards entitled to complain. The charter might be withdrawn at any time after two years’ notice; and it is not to be presumed that the Company would have ventured, by withholding their consent, to oppose any of the wishes or even whims of the crown, and thereby imperilled their very existence. However, the Company may have felt they acted wisely in refraining from remonstrance, and allowing Sir Edward Michelborne to make the most of his license. Though he covered his design with the name of trade, his whole conduct showed that his only object was to enrich himself by privateering. In this he so signally failed as to give the Company the best security that no such licenses would again be granted.

The third voyage—undertaken on a subscription of £53,500, of which £28,560 was expended in equipping three ships, the Dragon, the Hector, and the Consent; £7,280 on goods, and £17,600 in bullion—sailed in 1607, under the command of Captain Keeling. The Consent, a ship of 115 tons burden, commanded by Captain David Middleton, was first despatched, and made the voyage by herself without afterwards joining her companions. Weighing anchor from Tilbury Hope on the 12th of March, she made a prosperous voyage to the Cape of Good Hope, which was doubled on the 30th of July, and reached Bantam Road on the 14th of November. Having here landed the iron and lead which formed the cargo, refitted the ship, and taken in some goods for barter, Captain Middleton sailed for the Moluccas, which he reached in the beginning of January, 1608. After experiencing considerable obstruction from the Portuguese, who, as a condition of trading, insisted that he should join them in their hostilities against the Dutch, he set sail without having obtained a cargo, but had the good fortune, while off the island of Boutong, near the south-east extremity of the Celebes, to fall in with a Java junk laden with cloves from Amboyna. The master of the junk offered his whole cargo for sale, and Middleton purchased for £2,948, 15s., a quantity which was afterwards sold in England for £36,287. The object of his voyage having been thus accomplished, he hastened back to the factory at Bantam, landed the supercargoes who had accompanied him to the Moluccas, and then set sail for England, which he reached in December.

The Dragon and Hector, the one commanded by Captain Keeling as admiral, and the other by Captain Hawkins, quitted the Downs on the 1st of April, 1607, and encountering very tempestuous weather, during which many of the crew became diseased, took shelter in Sierra Leone, doubtful whether to prosecute the voyage or retrace their steps to England. The bolder course was ultimately adopted; and, after doubling the Cape, the voyage was continued northwards along the east coast of Africa as far as the island of Socotra, where 2,400 lbs. of aloes were purchased at the rate of 5 lbs. for a dollar. The two ships afterwards separated, Captain Hawkins proceeding directly to Surat with the Hector, which was thus the first vessel of the Company that anchored in a port of the continent of India; while Captain Keeling, in the Dragon, pursued the track taken by his predecessors, and after calling at Priaman in Sumatra, and taking in some pepper, passed the Straits of Sunda, and anchored in the road of Bantam on the 5th of October. It had been resolved that the Dragon, in consequence of her unsatisfactory condition, should forthwith be despatched to England with the cargo which had been procured; but before she sailed a vessel hove in sight, and proved to be the Hector. She had been rather unfortunate, for the Portuguese had attacked her, captured eighteen of her crew, including some of the factors, and seized her goods to the value of 9,000 dollars. Captain Hawkins, however, had found the prospect of opening a trade at Surat so promising that he had preferred to remain ashore, and send forward the vessel under the command of his first officer. The arrangement was so far opportune that Captain Keeling, who, by the departure of the Dragon, might have been left without a command, immediately assumed the command of the Hector, and proceeded with her, on the 1st of January, 1609, for the Moluccas.

The Dutch were now carrying on their trade with great spirit, and made no secret of their determination, as soon as they should establish their supremacy in the Spice Islands, to exclude all others from trading to them. Captain Keeling, in his single vessel, found it impossible to resist their arbitrary proceedings, and was obliged to carry on a precarious trade under a kind of ignominious sufferance. He succeeded, however, in obtaining a cargo of pepper, cloves, and nutmegs, and, returning to Bantam, prepared for the homeward voyage. Before departing, he placed the factory there upon a more regular footing than before. The salaries allowed strikingly illustrate the economical and even sordid spirit in which the Company made their first arrangements. Augustine Spalding, the factor, received £50 a-year. The other officials were paid monthly, as follows:—Francis Kelly, surgeon, £2, 5s.; John Parsons, 30s.; Robert O’Neal, 29s.; Augustine Adwell, 24s.; Etheldred Lampre and William Driver, 20s. each; William Wilson, 22s.; William Lamwell and Philip Badnedg, 16s. each; Francisco Domingo, 12s.; Juan Seram and Adrian, 10s. each. The Hector reached the Downs in safety on the 9th of May, 1610. Before she arrived, two other voyages had been fitted out. The one, which is ranked as the fourth of the Company, had a subscription of £33,000, and was confined to two vessels, the Ascension and the Union. It proved a total loss, the former vessel having been cast away in the Gulf of Cambay while attempting to make for Surat; and the latter, after arriving in the East, and trading with some success at Acheen and Priaman, having been wrecked as she was returning in the Bay of Biscay. The other voyage, usually classed as the fifth of the Company, though properly only a branch of the third, already described, was more fortunate. It consisted only of a single vessel, the Expedition, for which the subscription was £13,700. It sailed on the 24th of April, 1609, under the command of Captain David Middleton, who had previously made the successful voyage in the Consent; and after reaching Bantam on the 7th of December, continued onwards to the Moluccas, where, notwithstanding the opposition of the Dutch, he managed, with considerable dexterity, to obtain a valuable cargo, and bring it safely home to England. This voyage, thrown into one account with the third, yielded the largest return which the Company had yet obtained, the clear profit on both voyages being no less than 234 per cent.

The result of these experimental voyages made it impossible to doubt, that under the Company’s charter a most lucrative trade might be established. There were, however, several formidable obstacles in the way. Among the Eastern islands the Dutch were attempting to establish a supremacy, under which they evidently meant to exclude all other nations from any share in the spice trade; while the Portuguese, by their conduct at Surat, had shown that before the English could hope to traffic with any port on the continent of India they must be prepared to repel force by force. In future, therefore, it would be necessary for the Company to carry on their operations on a larger scale, and employ vessels which, while mainly adapted for mercantile purposes, might at the same time be able to maintain their ground against any enemy that should presume to attack them. In order to accomplish this, additional subscriptions were required; but it was doubtful if these would be forthcoming so long as the conduct of the monarch left it doubtful whether he considered himself bound by the charter which his predecessor had granted. His conduct in giving a license to Sir Edward Michelborne justified suspicion; and it was therefore almost vain to hope that new risks would be run until assurance was given that he was prepared to recognize the validity of the charter by adopting it as his own personal deed. Accordingly, in 1609, when of course six years of the original fifteen were still unexpired, the Company succeeded in obtaining from King James a new charter so nearly identical in its terms with that of his predecessor that a separate analysis of it is altogether superfluous. The only points deserving of notice are, that while the number of members specially named in Queen Elizabeth’s charter amounted to 218, in that of King James it is increased to 276; that the provisions against interlopers are rendered more stringent, by an authority given to the Company to seize and confiscate the ships and goods of contraband traders in any places, whether within the British dominions or not, provided they be places where the “Company, their factors and ministers, shall trade and traffic by virtue of these our letters-patents;” and that the duration of the privileges of the charter, instead of being restricted to fifteen years, and a conditional renewal for other fifteen after the former should have expired, is made perpetual. This last clause loses much of its apparent importance by a subsequent provision, in which full power is reserved to the crown to recall the charter at any time “after three years’ warning.”

In the preamble to this charter, King James declared that he had found “by certain experience, that the continuance of the said Company and trade will not only be a very great honour to us, our heirs and successors, and to our realm and dominions, but also in many respects profitable unto us and our commonwealth.” In this declaration, as well as in the provisions of the charter itself, there was certainly an additional security that the exclusive privileges of the Company would not be rashly infringed. To this it may have been partly owing that the subscription for the sixth voyage was the largest that had yet been made, amounting to £82,000. Three vessels were fitted out, one of them, the Trade’s Increase, of 1,000 tons burden; and the command was given to Sir Henry Middleton, who had made the second voyage. He set sail in the spring of 1610, arrived in Saldanha Bay on the 24th of July, and, after doubling the Cape, sailed northwards to the island of Socotra. It would seem that the Red Sea, and not India, was the original destination; for the commander, instead of continuing his course across the Indian Ocean, left the Pepper-Corn, the second largest of his vessels, at Aden, and then steered for Mocha, where he was induced to believe a ready market would be found for all his merchandise. At Aden he had been unable to procure a pilot, and had ventured for some distance within the Straits of Babelmandeb without one. At last two Arabs came aboard, professing great skill in navigation. Having been intrusted with the pilotage, they ran the Trade’s Increase on a sandbank shortly after the town of Mocha had been descried. The subsequent proceedings leave little doubt that it was wilfully done.

Sir Henry Middleton seems to have been little qualified for his command. When the ship could not be got off, the most valuable part of her cargo was sent ashore with the view of lightening her. He afterwards landed with many of his people without taking any precautions for safety, and, as soon as the Arabs had completed their treacherous preparations, found himself a prisoner in their hands. Ultimately, after losing many of his men and remaining a considerable time in captivity, he obtained his release, recovered his ships, and sailed for Surat, the road of which was reached on the 26th of September, 1611. Here he found a Portuguese squadron, consisting of seven frigates lying outside, and of thirteen smaller vessels inside the bar. They had heard of his arrival in the Red Sea, and, though the English were not then at war with Portugal, now made him aware that they disputed his right to trade at Surat, and would not even allow him to communicate with the Englishmen who had been left there by Captain Hawkins. This arbitrary proceeding the Portuguese admiral justified on the ground that he was invested with the office of captain-major, an office which made him guardian of all the ports in the north of India, and warranted him in seizing all vessels which presumed to trade with any of them without his carta or permit. Arrogant as this claim appears, it is not to be denied that the possession of it by the Portuguese had long been recognized even by the native courts; and that therefore the captain-major, whose income was chiefly derived from the fees paid for these permits, had, if not justice, at least prescription on his side, when he insisted that the English vessels should retire if they could not produce a letter from the King of Spain, or his viceroy at Goa, authorizing them to trade. The peace existing at this time between Spain, Portugal, and England, so far from weakening rather strengthened the captain-major’s claim, because the charter of the Company expressly prohibited them from encroaching on the rights actually possessed by friendly European powers. On the other hand, it may be argued that the prohibitory clause in the charter applied only to the actual possession of places, and never could have been meant to recognize a right which, pushed to its extreme, would have warranted the Portuguese in excluding all other nations from traffic with any part of the continent of India. Such a right would have made the Company’s charter little better than waste paper; and we cannot therefore wonder that Sir Henry Middleton at once declared his determination not to recognize it.

In the correspondence which ensued he told the captain-major that he had been sent by the King of England with a letter and rich present to the Great Mughul, in order to establish the trade which his countrymen had already commenced; and that, as India was a country free to all nations, and neither the Mughul nor his people were under vassalage, he was determined to persevere, at all hazards, and, if necessary, to repel force by force. When he gave this answer he was in the belief that an extensive and lucrative trade had been, or was about to be established by the Company at Surat, but the information which he shortly after received convinced him that, for the present, all idea of establishing such a trade must be abandoned.

It has been already mentioned that Captain Hawkins, who commanded the Hector in the Company’s third voyage, had, on arriving at Surat, found the prospect so flattering that he gave up the command to his first officer, and, ordering the vessel to proceed for Bantam, resolved to remain for the purpose of establishing a factory. He had brought a letter from the King of England to the Great Mughul, and believed he could not do better than proceed to Agra and deliver it in person. The character in which he proceeded was somewhat ambiguous; for though he speaks of himself as an ambassador, he does not seem to have been furnished with his powers. His credentials, however, were deemed sufficient; and his reception at court was so gracious that he was soon regarded as one of its leading favourites. The reigning Mughul at this time was Salim, the eldest son of the great Akbar, whose latter days had been so embittered by his misconduct that he had made an ineffectual attempt to disinherit him. On mounting the throne in 1605, Salim had assumed the pompous title of Jahangir, or Conqueror of the World, but did nothing to justify it. He was, in fact, a capricious tyrant, of low, dissolute habits, who owed his continued possession of the crown, not to any talent or virtue in himself, but to the respect entertained for his father’s memory, and the good order which, during his long reign, had been established in every part of the empire.

Hawkins, who must have had some previous knowledge of the Mughul’s character, and could not have been long at court without obtaining a thorough insight into it, ought to have been upon his guard; but, elated with the familiarity to which he was admitted, he deluded himself with the idea that he was about to make his fortune. Not long after his arrival, which took place 16th April, 1609, Jahangir, after promising to grant all the privileges of trade which he asked for the Company, proposed that he should remain permanently with him, as the English representative, at a salary which was to begin at £3,200 and increase yearly. The bait was tempting, and Hawkins at once swallowed it. His motives are best explained by himself in a letter addressed to his employers. “I, trusting upon his promise, and seeing it was beneficial both to my nation and myself, being dispossessed of the benefit which I should have reaped, if I had gone to Bantam, and that after half a dozen of years, your worships would send another man of sort in my place, in the mean time I should feather my nest and do you service; and further, perceiving great injuries offered us, by reason the king is so far from the ports, for all which causes above specified, I did not think it amiss to yield unto his request.”

When he had thus yielded, he began to feel some of the inconveniences of court favour. Being regarded as a mere upstart, his elevation gave umbrage to many of the nobility, while several Portuguese Jesuits, who possessed considerable influence at Agra, intrigued with the greatest zeal and perseverance for the purpose of defeating the great object of his mission. In these intrigues they were so unscrupulous that Hawkins thought he had sufficient proof of a conspiracy to poison him. Being still high in favour, he stated his fears to Jahangir, who proposed a rather curious remedy. “The king,” he says, “was very earnest with me to take a white maiden out of his palace,” promising that he “would give her all things necessary, with slaves,” that “she should turn Christian,” and “by this means my meats and drinks should be looked into by them, and I should live without fear.” Hawkins objected to the maiden proposed, “in regard she was a Moor,” but he added, “if so be there could be a Christian found, I would accept it.” Jahangir took him at his word, and produced the orphan daughter of an Armenian Christian, a captain who had been highly esteemed by Akbar. “I little thought,” says Hawkins, “a Christian’s daughter could be found;” but now, “I seeing she was of so honest a descent, having passed my word to the king, could not withstand my fortunes. Wherefore I took her; and for want of a minister, before Christian witnesses I married her: the priest was my man Nicholas, which I thought had been lawful, till I met with a preacher that came with Sir Henry Middleton, and he showing me the error, I was newly married again: so ever after I lived content and without fear, she being willing to go where I went, and live as I lived.”

This marriage, though entered into under unpromising circumstances, appears to have proved happy. If so, it was the only good thing which Captain Hawkins obtained at Agra. Instead of being able, as he had hoped, to feather his nest, he ultimately found that he had only been building castles in the air. The salary promised him was never paid; and courtiers, bribed by the Portuguese, having succeeded in convincing Jahangir that a breach with them would prove more pernicious than a league with the English promised to be beneficial, the fickle and unprincipled monarch cancelled all the promises he had made of conferring commercial privileges on the English, and left Hawkins to find his way to the coast as he best could.

Such was the information which made Sir Henry Middleton despair of being able to establish a factory at Surat. If he had continued to have any doubts on the subject, they would have been dissipated by the natives themselves, who, while they assured him of their anxiety to trade, confessed that so long as the Portuguese retained their ascendency, they durst not venture to incur their displeasure. Their advice therefore was, that the English vessels should quit Surat for the port of Gogo, in the Gulf of Cambay, where, it was said, the Portuguese would be less likely to interfere. Sir Henry Middleton had another plan in view; and, after succeeding in taking on board Captain Hawkins and his wife, who had arrived from Agra, and the Englishmen who had been left at Surat, called a council for the purpose of determining their future course. At this council, says Sir Henry, “I propounded whether it were best to go from hence directly for Priaman, Bantam, &c., or to return to the Red Sea, there to meet with such Indian ships as should be bound thither; and for that they would not deal with us at their own doors, we having come so far with commodities fitting their country, nowhere else in India vendable, I thought we should do ourselves some right, and them no wrong, to cause them barter with us—we to take their indigos and other goods of theirs as they were worth, and they to take ours in lieu thereof.” The latter proposal, though carrying injustice and spoliation on the very face of it, was unanimously preferred by the council; and the ships of a Company, invested by the crown with exclusive privileges for the purpose of carrying on a legitimate trade, deliberately set out on a marauding expedition which virtually made every man connected with it a pirate.

While Sir Henry Middleton was thus detaining and rifling all the vessels from India which were so unfortunate as to fall into his hands, other three vessels—the Clove, Hector, and Thomas—fitted out under the auspices of the Company, sailed from England on the 18th of April, 1611, under the command of Captain John Saris. Like those which Sir Henry commanded, their first destination was the Red Sea. As a means of securing a favourable reception at the different ports with which trade might be attempted, a firman or pass had been obtained from the sultan at Constantinople, by the intervention of the English ambassador there. In this document, addressed to all the “great viceroys and beglerbegs who are on the way (both by sea and land), from my most happy and imperial throne, to the confines of the East Indies,” they are strictly enjoined “kindly and courteously to entertain and receive the merchants and subjects of Great Britain, coming or passing through or by any of our dominions, with a view to trade to the territories of Yemen, Aden, and Mocha, and the parts adjoining, by assisting and relieving them with all things necessary for themselves, their men, and ships; and, in general, by yielding unto them “such offices of benevolence and humanity as shall be meet and convenient to be yielded unto honest men and strangers undertaking so long and painful a voyage.”

Fortified with this recommendation, Captain Saris had anticipated little difficulty in opening a traffic with the subjects of the sultan in the Red Sea, and was therefore mortified when, on arriving at the island of Socotra, he received a letter which had been left by Sir Henry Middleton, acquainting him with his proceedings and warning him against Turkish treachery. Though his hopes of peaceful trade were now faint, he determined to test the efficacy of his firman, and with that view sailed directly for Mocha. His reception was encouraging; and, by judicious management and the exercise of forbearance, past jealousies and fears might have been forgotten; but there seems to have been little sincerity on either side, and Saris, on meeting with some obstructions, hastily quitted the port and returned to the Straits of Babelmandeb. Here he found Sir Henry Middleton engaged in pillaging, and instead of repudiating his proceedings, was tempted to become a sharer in them. Sir Henry’s account of the unworthy compact for “romaging the Indian ships” is as follows:—“At last we agreed and sealed it in writings interchangeable, that he should have one-third part of what should be taken, paying for the same as I did, for the service of his three ships in the action: leaving the disposing of the ships afterward to me, who had sustained the wrongs.”

When, by means of these violent proceedings, flimsily disguised under the name of barter, the depredators had possessed themselves of a sufficient quantity of Surat cloths and other Indian goods, for which a ready market could be found in the Eastern Archipelago, they set sail in that direction. Sir Henry Middleton was again unfortunate; and after learning that the Trade’s Increase, which he had ordered to follow while he went forward with the Pepper-Corn, had been wrecked on a coral reef, died broken-hearted at the isle of Machian, one of the Moluccas. Captain Saris, after spending some time in the same group, sailed for the isles of Japan, where the Company had resolved to establish a factory. On the 11th of June, 1613, he cast anchor near Firando. Though he found the Dutch already installed, and disposed, not only to watch, but to thwart his proceedings, a letter from the King of England, and a valuable present to the emperor, procured him a favourable reception, and he had little difficulty in making arrangements for permanent trade. The voyage commanded by Sir Henry Middleton, notwithstanding the loss of the Trade’s Increase, yielded 121 per cent; that by Captain Saris, 218 per cent. But it is evident, from the above account of their proceedings, that these returns have no title whatever to be classed, as they usually are, under the head of mercantile profits.

About the same time when Captain Saris set out on his voyage, a single vessel, the Globe, had been despatched from England, under the command of Captain Anthony Hippon. Her course, differing considerably from that which had hitherto been followed, deserves to be traced. After touching at the Point-de-Galle, on the island of Ceylon, the Globe, instead of proceeding directly to Bantam, turned northward into the Bay of Bengal, and followed the line of the Coromandel coast, which was thus visited by a Company ship for the first time, though it had long before been frequented by both the Portuguese and Dutch. On arriving at Pulicat, Captain Hippon, with the sanction of the native authorities, sent some of his people ashore, and was making arrangements for trade when the president of the Dutch factory, producing a document said to have been executed by the King of Golconda, and conferring the exclusive privilege of trade on those who had received Prince Maurice’s permit, peremptorily ordered them to depart. Captain Hippon, though little disposed to yield obedience to this arrogant mandate, was not in a condition to dispute it, more especially as he was anxious to take advantage of the approaching monsoon. He therefore proceeded north as far as Masulipatam, leaving some of his people as the nucleus of a factory at Petapoli, situated on the coast at some distance south of that town, and then shaped his course for Bantam, which was reached on the 26th of April, 1612. From Bantam the Globe proceeded first to Patany, on the east coast of the peninsula of Malacca, and then to Siam, establishing factories at both. On the homeward voyage Masulipatam and Pulicat were again visited. In this way, though in very humble beginnings, a foundation was laid for that intercourse with the Bay of Bengal which was afterwards to be so largely developed, and to yield such magnificent results.

The efforts of the Company, which had hitherto been of an experimental and very desultory character, had certainly done little to justify their title to a charter which invested them with the exclusive privilege of trading in nearly three quarters of the globe. In the Eastern isles, to which they had at first resorted, they were completely overborne by the Dutch, and were barely able to maintain a precarious existence; in the Red Sea, in which, without any great temptation, they had rather invidiously endeavoured to carry off a share of the traffic which properly belonged to the Turkey Company, they had not only failed, but recklessly damaged their mercantile character by exhibiting themselves as lawless depredators; and on the whole continent of India there was not a single port at which they had obtained a permanent footing. Had Queen Elizabeth been spared to reign, the affairs of the Company would in all probability have presented a very different appearance. She had expected, in granting the charter, that the Company would at least rival, if not outstrip the Dutch; and, before the result of the first voyage was known, had, in a letter from which we have already quoted, upbraided the directors with their sluggishness in not preparing for a second. Such being her feelings, she would doubtless have insisted that the Company should either carry on their operations on a grander scale, or resign their exclusive privileges. Had they chosen the former alternative, she would have backed them with all the power of her government, and they would have had no reason to complain of unredressed injuries by Dutch or Portuguese. Very different was the conduct of King James, whose pusillanimity only encouraged aggression, and left the Company unaided to battle with their formidable opponents. To this cause, doubtless, is mainly to be ascribed the unsatisfactory progress which the Company had yet made. In almost every port which they visited, they found European rivals prepared to undermine them by intrigue, or crush them by open violence.

The course which the Company ought to have taken in such circumstances is very obvious, though it was long before they summoned courage to adopt it. Instead of sending out a few straggling vessels, which were unprovided with the means of repelling insult and outrage, they should have fitted out a fleet, and armed it fully with all the munitions of war. Some such resolution appears to have been adopted in preparing for the eighth voyage, which consisted of the Dragon and Osiander, afterwards joined by the James and Solomon, and was commanded by Captain Thomas Best. The two first vessels sailed from Gravesend on the 1st of February, 1612, and arrived in the Swally or road of Surat in the beginning of September. Notwithstanding the discouraging account given by Captain Hawkins, little difficulty was found in opening a communication with the town; and Mr. Kerridge, who appears to have been a factor in the Osiander, was soon able to put Captain Best in possession of a sealed certificate giving the English authority to trade. As it wanted some of the requisite formalities, some doubts were entertained of its validity, and before these were solved the Portuguese again made their appearance. Besides an immense fleet of merchantmen, numbering 200 sail, and giving a striking idea of the extent of trade which the Portuguese must then have carried on with the north coast of India, there were four war galleons, which had come with the avowed determination of expelling the English. Captain Best was well prepared for them, and deeming it unnecessary to wait till he was attacked, at once assumed the offensive. On the 29th of November, placing himself in the Dragon, about two cables’ length from the Portuguese vice-admiral, the depth of water not allowing him to go nearer, “I began,” he says, “to play upon him with both great and small shot, that by an hour we had well peppered him.” The following day the fight was renewed, and with still more success on the part of the English, who again defeated the Portuguese, and drove “three of their four ships on ground on the sands thwart of the Bar of Surat.” These having again been got off, the Portuguese attempted repeatedly to repair their disgrace, but always with the same result.

The success which the English had thus gained over a superior force, proved far more effectual than their previous attempts at negotiation, and Jahangir, becoming as anxious to secure their alliance as he had previously been indifferent or averse to it, entered into a treaty in regular form. The principal clauses in this treaty were:—That the English should have full freedom of trade in his dominions; that their persons, while ashore, should be protected from the Portuguese; that their imports should pay only 3½ per cent as customs; that in cases of death no fees should be demanded, and the goods of the deceased should be delivered up to the first English ships which might subsequently arrive; that in cases of wrong, redress should be speedily obtained; and that an English ambassador should be received, and permitted to reside at the Mughul court. This important treaty was finally delivered, with much formality, to Captain Best at Swally, on the 6th of February, 1613.

A great object had now been gained. The Portuguese claim to control the trade had been expressly disowned by the Great Mughul himself, and a permanent footing had been secured in several large commercial emporiums, where considerable sales of English goods could be made on favourable terms, and an unlimited supply obtained of the goods best fitted both for the home market and for barter against the spices of the Indian Archipelago. The affairs of the Company thus assumed a more promising appearance than they had ever presented before, and capital for future investments began to flow into their coffers. It was scarcely possible that, in these circumstances, the desultory mode of management hitherto pursued could be continued; and in the determination announced by the directors to abandon the system of separate adventures, and trade in future on a joint stock, we see nothing more than a necessary result of their altered and improved position.

The resolution to trade in future on a joint stock, under the immediate management of the Company, must have been favourably received, as a sum of £429,000 was raised for the purpose, and apportioned in fitting out four voyages, which were to sail successively in the years 1613, 1614, 1615, and 1616. The fleets were larger than had been previously employed: the first two consisting of eight vessels each, the third of six, and the fourth of seven. The voyages themselves possess little interest; but the results, though not so extravagant as when they were swelled by the spoliation of native ships, were on the whole satisfactory, as the average return of profit was 87 per cent. The most important incidents which occurred during the performance of these voyages were—a new encounter with the Portuguese in the road of Swally, in January, 1615, when a large fleet, under the command of the Viceroy of Goa in person, having wantonly attacked the English, was signally defeated, with the loss of 350 men; a declaration of war between the Portuguese and the Great Mughul, and a consequent strengthening of the English alliance with the latter; and the arrival of Sir Thomas Roe, invested with full powers to act as ambassador from the King of England.

This embassy, undertaken in accordance with one of the stipulations in the treaty above mentioned, had the interest of the Company mainly for its object, and was therefore maintained entirely at their expense. Sir Thomas Roe arrived in the end of 1615, and continued to be a resident at the Mughul court till the end of 1618. Though his recognized character, and the judicious manner in which he acted, gave him much more influence than Hawkins, it is impossible to read his journal without being satisfied that the Company, in employing an ambassador at all, had committed a blunder. Points of etiquette which his position as ambassador would not allow him to yield, were apt to bring him into collision with the Mughul himself, or the higher members of his court; and he gave it as his decided opinion, that as the object of his mission was only mercantile, a native agent duly authorized, and maintained at an expense of £100 a-year, would secure it better than ten ambassadors.

While thus candidly condemning the policy which had made him ambassador, Sir Thomas Roe lost no opportunity of furthering the interests of the Company; and on several occasions, by counterworking intriguers, and obtaining redress of grievances, undoubtedly contributed to place the English trade on a stable footing, and prepare it for the larger development which it at last received. Still, it must be confessed that the most valuable service which he rendered, was in writing a journal which makes us intimately acquainted with all his transactions, and contains a most graphic description of Jahangir and his court. The subject has been already alluded to when mentioning the adventures of Captain Hawkins; but the information of the journal, as well as that derived from other sources, will justify some additional details.

Jahangir, after succeeding his father in 1605, made great professions of moderation, but his bad habits soon resumed their ascendency; and in the second year of his reign, on the suppression of a rebellion, headed by his eldest son Khusrav, who claimed the throne as the nominee of his grandfather Akbar, he gave full scope to his ferocity, by ordering 700 of the captured rebels to be impaled in a line leading from the gate of Lahore. In the sixth year of his reign (1611), he contracted a marriage with Nur Jahan, a celebrated beauty, whose husband had perished in defending his honour against Jahangir’s intrigues. This event gave a colour to his future reign. Her ascendency over him was unbounded, and was employed by her less unworthily than might have been anticipated. In early life he had become excessively addicted to wine and opium, and while Hawkins resided at his court, was so completely enslaved by this vicious habit, that his daily routine is described as follows:—“His prayers being ended, four or five sorts of very well dressed and roasted meats are brought him, of which, as he pleaseth, he eateth a bit to stay his stomach, drinking once of his strong drink. Then he cometh for the into a private room, where none can come but such as himself nominateth. In this place he drinketh other five cupfuls, which is the portion that the physicians allot him. This done he eateth opium, and then he ariseth, and being in the height of his drink, he layeth him down to sleep, every man departing to his own home; and after he hath slept two hours, they awake him and bring his supper to him, at which time he is not able to feed himself, but it is thrust into his mouth by others; and this is about one of the clock, and then he sleepeth the rest of the night.”

The government of such a disgusting drunkard could not be well conducted; and though the administrative talents of his wife, Nur Jahan, and the military prowess of his son, Prince Khurram, afterwards better known by his title of Shah Jahan, prevented the confusion which must otherwise have taken place, the court was a scene of constant intrigue, and corruption was rampant in every branch of the public service. Such was the state of matters when Sir Thomas Roe arrived. On first landing at Surat, he found the governor enriching himself by seizing the goods of merchants, and insisting on their being sold to him at prices of his own fixing. On advancing into the interior, he was everywhere struck with signs of devastation and neglect; and on his reaching the court, though he could not but be struck with the magnificence which surrounded the monarch, as he sat on his throne all covered with diamonds, pearls, and rubies, his admission to the drinking parties above described, when, with the exception of himself and a few grave personages, scarcely an individual remained sober, soon convinced him how little dependence could be placed on any arrangements that could be made with one who was so little master of himself.

Even at the time of Sir Thomas Roe’s residence, Jahangir’s sons, convinced that his drunken habits must speedily terminate his life, had begun to intrigue for the succession; and yet, such was the strength of his constitution, that his reign was prolonged for other ten years, and did not terminate till 1627. During part of this time, indeed, he could scarcely be said to possess the throne, as his sons were openly at war either with him or with each other; and the year before he died, he was some months a prisoner in the hands of one of his generals. On regaining his liberty, he set out on his annual visit to Kashmir, but had not long arrived before he was seized with a violent illness, and died on the way back to Lahore.