sons. that he had so far let them go much as they pleased, but that now, when they were nearing the post of the foe, there must be no more nonsense. They acknowledged the hand of the master. Companies were formed (at that advanced hour!), practice was given, and order reigning, at last they sailed westward along the rocky north coast of Porto Rico. diversified intercourse with the talking to. It came to this: islanders, some hostilities, a good deal of barter, baffled efforts to catch a prisoner, who would be good for a large ransom, and in a general way civilities as between perWe hated the Spaniard in the abstract, and got on fairly well with him individually. Then having, to tell the plain truth, wasted more time than ought to have been spared in prowling for prize and ransom when a serious operation was on hand, they all went on to the Antilles. To be sure, there would be some pedantry in treating the foray on Porto Rico as an operation of war to be solemnly criticised. It was a dashing adventure of knights, who were not indifferent to the sweets of ransom getting, and of men of business who would fight when they saw occasion, but were there mainly on the "plundering account." There was a serious purpose at the heart of it, but the execution so far appears to have followed pretty closely the lines of a lively undergraduate rag. Of course, that had to end. So when Cumberland had brought his flock to the Virgin Islands, he gave them an opportunity to refresh themselves at medicinal springs, and with fruit (need one note that they were suffering from scurvy, as crews always did then in voyages of any length 1); and he did more. He drew the reins of discipline firmly. Standing on a big stone under a beetling cliff, he gave his followers a San Juan is at the west end of a narrow islet, which lies parallel to the coast of the island. One could wade into it at the east end, but the Spaniards had a fort there. The scientific soldier would have begun by battering down the fort with ships' guns. These men were knights, undergraduates, larky schoolboys. They waded at the fort, and were, to the number of fifty or thereabouts, shot down. The Earl had a narrow escape of making an end tinged by absurdity. As he was pressing on in the shallow water his foot slipped, and he fell on his back. It was a disastrous position, for he wore armour, and it held him down. Zealous servants pulled him out, well on the way to being drowned, and he was very sick. The attack failed, as it was bound to, and then they ended where, if not common-sense at any rate, professional soldiering would have taught them to begin. round, down. so few Ships were brought and the fort battered Being in number not as a thousand, they her out in very many cases. He left his bones in the West Indies, or down in the bottomless sea. The ambition had been too great for the means employed. Not here, but in far distant seas, and in far other ways, was the Malice Scourge to be instrumental in preparing the ground for a British Empire. marched into San Juan, where not the gentleman who took they found only women, children, and old men. The younger had betaken themselves to other forts. With the light-hearted contempt for truth of all the Elizabethans, the historians of the voyage describe San Juan as being of the size of Oxford. There were probably fifty villages in Oxfordshire which were larger. The Earl, a thorough gentleman, kept good order, even to the extent of stringing up one misguided scoundrel among his followers, who had offered violence to a woman. He had the town easily enough. The difficulty was to keep it. As far as the hostility of the Spaniards was concerned, there was was nothing to fear. They had no troops, and the creole settlers were but few. The real defenders of King Philip's possessions now, and more or less always, were far less his subjects than the country fevers. The garrison the Earl put in charge of the forts when they surrendered soon began to die at a terrible rate. While some of the ships were absent looking for prizes, which they had not the good fortune to meet, the survivors lost heart, took ship, and came away, fleeing before "Yellow Jack." The expedition came home with small booty and a monstrous loss of life. It was currently reported that threefourths of the sailors and soldiers died. Certain it is that the loss of life by disease was very high. The captain who brought the ship home was The Earl of Cumberland was the more truly a brief abstract of his time, for that he began by raiding and ended by promoting the trade of merchandise. His name stands at the head of that body of Englishmen to whom Elizabeth on the 31st December 1600-at the last hour of the century of romance, and in the eve before the dawn of centuries of trade and colonisation and business granted the first Charter of the East India Company. He joined the merchants of London, who had soberly, after grave study, resolved to promote the honour of their country by the trade of merchandise. He aided them, and set forth the reasons for the venture, the ways of attaining success, the conditions of the task; or let us, to be exact, say that he prompted some better pen than his to put it all on paper. His unaided prose was wildly involved-not to say brokenbacked. Alderman Banning and other members of the Company were old allies of his. He sold them the Malice Scourge, not giving her away (as why should he, even if his affairs had not been in sad confusion, as they were ?), but parting with his ship on terms. We hear the outcome of a tart exchange of views in this entry in the First Letter Book' of the Company. "The said Committees (i.e., committee-men), being desired to talk and confer about the price of the Malice Scourge (Mall Escourge it stands in the text), had long conference about the same, and in the end my lord came again himself, telling them he perceived what pains they had taken about this business, but he said he would take no less than £4000, which, seeing they would not give, he would lose no time more about the same; but since they would not buy her, he would proceed about his own business, and so prayed them to do theirs, and so departed." Though the Earl departed in dudgeon, the bargain was not quite off. The committees offered £3500, and then bettered their offer to £3700, and that sum he took, part in money and part in stock. So the Malice Scourge passed from the trade of war to the trade of merchandise; from Cumberland to the Company's service; parted with her first name, and became the Red Dragon; ceased to carry highborn warriors on forays, and bore with her James Lancaster, together with the Cape Merchant and factors who were to plant English commerce in the East. Mr Stevens gave his edition of the Company's First VOL. CCIX.-NO. MCCLXVII. Letter Book ' a misleading name when he headed it‘The Dawn of British Trade to the East Indies.' Some of the merchants of London had done business with those Indies for years, indirectly through Lisbon, directly, though by roundabout routes, as members of the Muscovy and the Smyrna Companies. They had consulted the best-printed books. They had the advice of men who had actually gone far East-Ralph Fitch for one. Knowledge abounded with them no less than the courage to adventure. It was a sober spirit, thoughtful and well-informed, which glowed in them, a strong well-controlled central heat, which did not waste itself in flames. The Letter Book,' with its brief entries, shows a body of careful men resolved to deserve success by minute attention to detail. The provision of beef, pork, flour, beer and cider, scales of diet, choice of cargo, and the supply of bullion are all seen to, and withal the Company could rise to a level of grave eloquence on a fitting occasion. When all was ready, a last word remained to be spoken. The Queen had authorised the "General" Lancaster to govern and punish. But the commission was personal to him "without any appointing of succession." What, then, if he were to die at sea? They could not apply to her Majesty to supply the omission without some appearance of lack of respect for 2 T her and her council. The com- mend you and your travails mittees foresaw a possible need to God's providence, who guide for the choice of a successor you with His fear, and defend in remote seas, perhaps on the you from all dangers." other side of the world, when no technically correct authority was there to make it, and they trusted these their servants, who were also their brother Englishmen, to play the part of free self-governing men. "Whereas ... it lieth not in us "their words echo at once the formulas of legal documents and the style of Scripture with its beat and repetitions-" to give any warrant for the correction of offences by penal laws to be executed upon the bodies of any her Majesty's subjects, we do in that behalf as to men having reason and discretion, and to men that fear God, offer unto your good consideration the benefit of order and peaceable agreement in matters and enterprises undertaken for a common good, reposing in you, our several merchants and all you our several officers, appointed and entertained in this voyage, a special hope, trust, and confidence, that you will accord and agree together, and join in friendship and amity, to do and execute your uttermost endeavours for the benefit of the voyage without contentions, discord, or emulation, to be used among yourselves therein, by that general regiment and sea government which our English fleets do use when they sort themselves, having a special regard and sure respect to him that is your Principal or Cape Merchant : and so we com Trust in God, and keep your powder dry, not presuming to call on Him to perform miracles on your behalf. They sailed in February 1601, a great date, for then the building of the British Empire in India began. There were four of them-the Red Dragon, the Hector, the Susan, the Ascension, and a victualler, which was to be dismantled and turned adrift when her stores had been drawn on, and she was no longer needed. The Red Dragon represented half or even a little more than half the whole tonnage of the fleet. Lancaster sailed in her. The Company had spared neither thought nor labour in the preparation of the voyage, but they did nothing wiser than the choice of their officer. Lancaster had begun as soldier and merchant, had lived in Lisbon, had sailed to the East with Raymond in 1591, had commanded a mixed force of rival English raiders, French and Flemish privateers, in an attack on Pernambuco, with remarkable tact and power of managing men, and therefore with signal success. He had knowledge, and, what is much rarer, the art of using knowledge. He was firm, patient, ready to strike when necessary, and absolutely loyal to his task. Therefore the First Voyage was a complete success. He may not have been "a gentleman " in the sense the word had when applied to that Sir Edward Michelborne whom the Company would not hear of as their commander, though he was twice pressed on them by so great a personage as Lord Treasurer Buckhurst. If so, then England was very rich in men who deserved to be "gentlemen." Dragon (the Red was soon dropped), by the aid of lemon juice, in better health than the other ships. More than a year and a half had passed before the Dragon, with the Hector and Ascension, came to an anchor at Achin, in Sumatra. The crews had been sadly diminished by disease. But the three made a stately show, and they were well received by the Sultan of Achin. The presents sent out by the Company to placate the mighty" potentates of the East were duly delivered-a silver fountain and basin of 203 ounces, with a looking The new career of our ship was to be prolonged for nearly twenty years, and was to be filled with both work and adventure, trading and fighting. She carried Lancaster to Sumatra, Middleton to the Spice Islands, Keeling to the islands. It was in her that Best fought the Portuguese glass-Venetian-an adorned off Swally, in the Gulf of Cambaya. She met her heroic end in the islands, and at the hands of the Dutch. Her cruises spin a thread on which one might hang a whole history of real victory and apparent failure. They began with a real success, but not with one which promised great consequences. Much as the Company knew, it could not foresee that its field was to be in Hindustan and the Deccan not in the Indian archipelago. What it had in its mind was the spice trade, for the profits were certain and great. Nor did the knowledge of the merchants of London and their servants as yet extend to familiarity with trade winds and monsoons, currents and seasons. The First Voyage was begun at the wrong time, and was long, with the usual consequence of scurvy, though Lancaster kept the crew of the helmet, and a fan. A letter of a profusely complimentary order from Queen Elizabeth was duly handed to the Sultan. Her Majesty might not have been best pleased if she had known the history of the prince she addressed as brother. Aliuddin Shah had begun life as a fisherman, had thriven by the wars, and had planted himself on the throne after butchering his master, Mansur Shah, together with all his family. Our ancestors soon began to realise the quality of the potentates they were at first inclined to regard with reverence. For the present, Ali-uddin, who was very old, and no less wicked and astute, was abundantly civil. He belauded Elizabeth, caused himself to be cooled with the fan offered him, invited Lancaster and his officers to dinner, and did them the signal honour of entertaining them with a dance |