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The Deptford yard, which the Company leased from the year 1607 and used for the next twenty years, was of the greatest assistance to the Company. The best merchant ships in the country there came into being, were fitted out, repaired on their return, resheathed and then sent to sea in excellent condition. It was true that the saving in building for themselves was to the Company’s great benefit; but, on the other hand, the yard with all this staff and detail was found in the long run to be so costly that it swallowed up too much of the capital, which could more profitably have been employed in hiring ships. It was seen also that even with the carefulness expended in the construction of the Company’s ships, the latter became worn out after four voyages: so at the end of twenty years it was decided to give up this expensive yard and to revert to the original custom of hiring vessels as required. Later on we shall see that this system developed in a curious manner, but for the present we must go back to see the progress which the voyages of these early East Indiamen brought about in the Eastern trade. It took four months to fit out these ships for sailing again to the East, and the refit was very thorough. A large magazine of warlike stores to the value of £30,000 was kept always ready, and this was really a very useful asset in the country, since in the time of necessity the material could be used by the English navy. Even in the year 1626, within a few months of the closing down of the shipyard, the Company were so enterprising as to erect mills and houses for the manufacture of their own gunpowder, obtaining the saltpetre from the East, which of course came home in their own ships. If ever monopoly was allowed to have its own way, surely it never had such good opportunity as was vouchsafed to the East India Company, with its own shipyards, victualling, and its own particular trade with full cargoes each way and a high percentage almost assured. We are accustomed in this twentieth century to bewail the existence of “corners” and trusts: yet these are as nothing compared with the privileges which the East India Company enjoyed and so jealously guarded through generation after generation, through two centuries and well into a third. And that meant more than was really apparent. The whole world had not been developed and opened out as it is to-day. Rather this exclusive privilege meant the granting of about half the world to a select few, and the democratic spirit of the twentieth century would instantly revolt against any such condition of affairs. It must not be thought that there were not those who protested even in the seventeenth century. Some did certainly protest—in a very forcible manner—by cutting in as interlopers. But it was a short-lived victory and had no lasting effect.

CHAPTER VIII
PERILS AND ADVENTURES

It is only by examining the official correspondence which passed between the Company’s servants and themselves that we are able to get a correct insight into the lesser, though usually more human, details connected with these ships. In the last chapter but one we saw that the third voyage had been financially satisfactory. But there are a few sidelights which show that these voyages were not mere pleasure cruises. If this particular one earned 234 per cent. it was by sheer hard work on the part of the men and of the ships. Captain Keeling writes that he had, whilst in the East, to buy “of the Dutch a maine top-sayle (whereof we had extreame want) and delivered them a note to the Company, to receive twelve pounds twelve shillings for the same.” So also it was with men as with sails. Anthony Marlowe writes home to the Governor of the Company, under date of 22nd June 1608, from on board the Hector, that during the voyage “there hath died in our ship two foremast men—Wallis and Palline: and two lost overboard, Goodman and Jones: also there hath died Dryhurst, steward’s mate, John Newcome, John Asshenhurst, purser’s mate, Mr Quaytmore, purser, and Mr Clarke, merchant.”

If there was ill-feeling ashore between the English and the Portuguese, and the English and Dutch, so all was not ever as happy as wedding bells in the English ships. One June day in 1608, during this third voyage, a violent enmity had broken out between Anthony Hippon, master of the Dragon, and his mate, William Tavernour. Someone endeavoured to get them to make up their quarrel, but Hippon was obdurate, and “was heartened forward in his malice against the said Tavernour by Matthew Mullynex the master of the Hector.”

And there is a further letter, dated 4th December 1608, which was sent by another of the Company’s servants named James Hearne, which again calls attention to the Dragon’s want of sails, the ship then being at Bantam. There was no canvas procurable out there, “therefore,” he suggests, “one hundred pound more or less, would not be lost in laying it out in spare canvas in such a voyage as this.” And then he concludes his letter with a postscript, which shows that the life of a factor in the Company’s service ashore out in the East was not a lucrative occupation. “That it may please your worships,” he petitions, “to consider me somewhat in my wages, for I have served 2 years already at £4 a month, and in this place I am in, my charge will be greater than otherwise.”

We have already alluded to the setting forth of the sixth expedition under Sir Henry Middleton in 1607. Middleton was instructed to proceed to the west coast of India with the intention of obtaining from Surat Indian calicoes which would find a ready sale at Bantam and the Moluccas. Having set forth from England in the year 1610, he arrived at Aden, where he left the Peppercorn, and then with his flag in the Trade’s Increase sailed for Mocha, which is at the southern end of the Red Sea. No English vessel had yet thrust her bows into this sea, though the Portuguese had been there even during the previous century. And here the Trade’s Increase, which had received such an ovation when she was first launched at the Deptford yard, was to begin the first of her serious mishaps. Like many another ship that came after her, famous for unprecedented size, she was destined to be unlucky.

She was making for Mocha with the assistance of native pilots when she had the misfortune to get badly aground. She was a clumsy, unhandy ship, and it was natural enough that the natives who had been accustomed only to their smaller craft might get her into trouble. The incident occurred in November 1610, and the following account sent home by one who was on board her at the time may be taken as representative of the facts. “About five a clocke,” runs the account, “in luffing in beeing much wind, we split our maine toppe sayle, and putting abroad our mizen, it split likewise: our Pilots brought our shippe a ground upon a banke of sand, the wind blowing hard, and the Sea somewhat high, which made us all doubt her coming off ... we did what we could to lighten our ship, sending some goods a-land and some aboard the Darling ... we land as well our Wheat-meale, Vinegar, Sea-coles, Pitch and Tarre, with our unbuilt Pinnasse, and other provisions which came next hand, or in the way, as well as Tinne, Lead, Iron, and other merchandise to be sould, and staved neare all our water.” The reference to the “unbuilt pinnasse” is explained by the fact that it was the custom of the Elizabethan and later voyagers to take out from home the necessary timber and planks and to build the little craft on board as they proceeded. This kept the men occupied and was a saving in wages, besides not involving the risk of losing such a craft before the end of the voyage was being approached. Such a top-heavy, cumbrous vessel as the Trade’s Increase would need very careful “nursing” in a squall to prevent her from capsizing, and it is perfectly clear that the sudden luffing up into the wind to ease her was too much for the canvas that had already been considerably worn and chafed during the voyage across the Equator and round the Cape of Good Hope up to the Gulf of Aden.