Extent of their maritime commerce.
They take the lead in the trade with India.
Expedition of Sir Henry Middleton.
Its failure and his death.
The separation of the Dutch provinces from the crown of Spain had induced their merchants to seek more distant and more lucrative channels of employment for their ships, while their superior information respecting Spanish and Portuguese affairs gave them a marked advantage over their English competitors in the valuable trade of the East. They had now supplanted the Portuguese[152] in the Moluccas, driven them out of their most valuable trade with Japan, and become the predominant naval power in the Indian seas, a power they long maintained. Finding England, however, a more stubborn rival, they employed all their influence and artifices to molest the ships of the Company and other English traders. Just, in fact, as the Moors had endeavoured to ruin the Portuguese in the opinion of the native princes of India, so the Dutch, having expelled the Portuguese from the chief trade of the East, now resorted to any expedient, either by secret intrigue or open force, to drive the English merchant vessels from the same localities. But the profits realised in their first expedition had inspired the London merchants with fresh energy. Having obtained a new charter (31st of May, 1609) for fifteen years, the Company set about constructing the Trades’ Increase, of one thousand two hundred tons, the largest ship hitherto built for the English merchant service. At her launch, and at that of her pinnace, of two hundred and fifty tons, bearing the equally appropriate name of the Peppercorn, the Company gave a great banquet, at which the dishes were of china-ware, then a novelty in England. With these vessels, and a victualling bark of one hundred and eighty tons, and the Darling, of ninety tons, Sir Henry Middleton, who had been placed in command, set sail for Mocha, on the Red Sea, where, ensnared on shore by the Muhammedans, eight of his crew were massacred, sixteen others disabled, and he himself severely wounded. Proceeding thence to Bantam, the Trades’ Increase was unfortunately wrecked, and here Middleton, broken down by misfortunes and disasters, died, thus closing one of their most unfortunate expeditions on record.
Renewed efforts of the English East India Company.
The Company, however, persevered in their Eastern undertakings, and in 1611 despatched two other expeditions to the Indies; one consisting of a single ship, the Globe, which, though absent for nearly five years, owing to the artifices of their opponents, realised two hundred and eighteen per cent. on the capital invested; the other, consisting of the Clove, the Hector, and the Thomas, comparatively small vessels, which, though absent only three years, was even more successful: another expedition, which immediately followed, though absent only twenty months, earned in that time a profit of no less than three hundred and forty per cent.[153]
They gain favour with the Moghul Emperor of India, and materially extend their commercial operations.
Having opened negotiations with the Moghul emperor of India, Jehangir, the Company obtained the privilege of establishing a factory at Surat, and in return for the payment of certain fixed custom duties, secured their vessels and property against the hostility of the Portuguese, and their still more formidable rivals the Dutch. They also contrived to obtain a footing in Japan, through the influence of one William Adams, a native of Kent, who, having been pilot in one of the earliest Dutch expeditions, had settled there, and had gained the confidence of the emperor, from whom he received many favours. It is to be regretted that the intercourse thus formed was allowed to fall into abeyance after the death of Adams[154] in 1631, and that Europe, during the long period since, has, till quite recently, derived little or no benefit from a commerce likely to become second only to that of China.
When, in 1614, the English Company despatched the New Years Gift, of six hundred and fifty tons; the Hector, of five hundred; the Merchant’s Hope, of three hundred; and the Solomon,[155] of two hundred tons, they for the first time consolidated their profits into one common stock. In this expedition they were fortunate enough to repel the Portuguese in their attack upon one of the ports belonging to the Moghul emperor, thus materially strengthening their relations with that powerful Indian monarch. An event so fortunate was promptly followed by the despatch of Sir Thomas Roe as ambassador from England to his court, where he resided until the year 1619. Numerous privileges were then granted to the Company, whose ships now traded with Achin, Tambee, and Jewa, in Sumatra, where they established factories, as well as to Surat, in the dominion of the Moghul, to Ferando in Japan, and to Bantam and Batana, in Java. They also carried on trading operations, to a greater or less extent, with Borneo, Banda, Malacca, Siam, Celebes, and the coasts of Malabar and Coromandel.[156]