CAPTAIN JOHN DAVIS.
(Vol. viii., p. 385.)
The earliest memoir of captain John Davis, the celebrated arctic navigator, is that given by the reverend John Prince in his Danmonii orientales illustres, or the worthies of Devon, Exeter, 1701, folio. It is, however, erroneous and defective in important particulars, and has misled some eminent writers, as Campbell, Eyriès, Barrow, &c.
Despite the assertions of master Prince, I question if captain Davis married a daughter of sir John Fulford; I am sure he was not the first pilot who conducted the Hollanders to the East-Indies; I am sure the journal of the voyage is not printed in Hakluyt; I am sure the narrative of his voyage with sir Edward Michelborne is neither dedicated to the earl of Essex nor printed in Hakluyt; I am sure he did not write the Rutter, or brief directions for sailing into the East-Indies; I am sure he wrote two works of which Prince says nothing; I am sure he did not make five voyages to the East-Indies; and I am sure, to omit other oversights, that he did not "return home safe again." To the latter point I shall now confine myself.
In 1604 king James, regardless of the charter held by the East-India company, granted a license to sir Edward Michelborne, one of his gentlemen-pensioners, to discover and trade with the "countries and domynions of Cathaia, China, Japan," &c. This license, preserved in the Rolls-chapel, is dated the twenty-fifth of June. On the fifth of December sir Edward set sail from Cowes with the Tiger, a ship of 240 tons, and a pinnace—captain Davis being, as I conceive, the second in command. In December 1605, being near the island of Bintang, they fell in with a junk of 70 tons, carrying ninety Japanese, most of them
"in too gallant a habit for saylers:" in fact, they were pirates! The unfortunate result shall now be stated in the words of the pirate Michelborne:
"Vpon mutuall courtesies with gifts and feastings betweene vs, sometimes fiue and twentie or sixe and twentie of their chiefest came aboord: whereof I vould not suffer aboue sixe to have weapons. Their was neuer the like number of our men aboord their iunke. I willed captaine John Dauis in the morning [the twenty-seventh of December] to possesse himselfe of their weapons, and to put the companie before mast, and to leave some guard on their weapons, while they searched in the rice, doubting that by searching and finding that which would dislike them, they might suddenly set vpon my men, and put them to the sword: as the sequell prooued. Captaine Dauis being beguiled with their humble semblance, would not possesse himselfe of their weapons, though I sent twice of purpose from my shippe to will him to doe it. They passed all the day, my men searching in the rice, and they looking on: at the sunne-setting, after long search and nothing found, saue a little storax and beniamin: they seeing oportunitie, and talking to the rest of their companie which were in my ship, being neere to their iunke, they resolued, at a watch-word betweene them, to set vpon vs resolutely in both ships. This being concluded, they suddenly killed and droue ouer-boord, all my men that were in their ship; and those which were aboord my ship sallied out of my cabbin, where they were put, with such weapons as they had, finding certaine targets in my cabbin, and other things that they vsed as weapons. My selfe being aloft on the decke, knowing what was likely to follow, leapt into the waste, where, with the boate swaines, carpenter and some few more, wee kept them vnder the halfe-decke. At their first comming forth of the cabbin, they met captain Dauis comming out of the gun-roome, whom they pulled into the cabbin, and giuing him sixe or seuen mortall wounds, they thrust him out of the cabbin before them. His wounds were so mortall, that he dyed assoone as he came into the waste."—Purchas, i. 137.
Bolton Corney.