The Honourable Company. John Keay
could retaliate only with a muttered threat to settle matters ‘when next we meete twixt Dover and Calais’. It also did nothing to endear him to Jan Pieterson Coen. As Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies, Coen was destined to become his lifelong adversary. They would meet again, but not ‘twixt Dover and Calais’.
Calling at Butung, where Middleton had left a lone British factor who was now happily married to an island siren and reluctant ever to move (although truly grateful for a new supply of linen), and then at Macassar where he established a factory among ‘the kindest people in all the Indies’, Jourdain repaired to Bantam and the unenviable job of Chief Factor for the next four years. Towerson was gone (he was now commanding the Hector on her fifth and last voyage to the East) and there were more Englishmen in Bantam. But not much else was changed.
As he entered the oily waters of Bantam’s sheltered anchorage Jourdain looked for a resounding welcome from the Trades Increase of the Sixth Voyage. At 1200 tons far and away the biggest ship in the Company’s fleet, she had been launched with great ceremony by James I and was now on her maiden voyage with Sir Henry Middleton in command. It had not been a happy voyage. As will appear, the choleric Sir Henry had spent part of it in an Arab dog-kennel and, far from increasing trade, his flagship had seemingly hastened the demise of British commerce in India.
Spying her enormous bulk now lying off Bantam, Jourdain fired a salvo. There came no reply. Then ‘we hailed them but could have no answer, neither could we perceive any man stirring’. The Company’s flagship had in fact become a grounded and gutted hulk; her commander was dead, her crew decimated, and her hull was now serving as a hospice for the terminally sick. Instead of a rumbustious homecoming Jourdain was received by four factors, ‘all of them like ghosts of men fraighted’, who came aboard from a native prabu.
I demanded for the General [Middleton] and all the rest of our friends in particular; but I could not name any man of note but was dead, to the number of 140 persons; and the rest remaining were all sick, these four being the strongest of them and they scarce able to go on their legges.
To malaria and dysentery were now added the perils of ‘our people dangerously disordering themselves with drinke and whores ashoare’. But a worse disorder stemmed from the system of separate voyages, which meant that there were now three separate English factories in Bantam, each with its residue of competing, quarrelling and dying factors and each a prime target for the town’s busy ‘pickers, thievers and fire raisers’. In search of a peaceful solution Jourdain visited each establishment. At one he was greeted by a fevered factor ‘who came running forth like a madman asking for the bilboes [shackles]’ and at the next by another tottering invalid who tried to run him through with a sword. ‘If he had been strong he might have slaine me.’
Just preserving some order among his own people taxed Jourdain’s considerable abilities, never mind the Dutch threat. In 1614 no shipping at all could be spared for the Moluccas but in 1615 a vessel was sent to Ceram and a pinnace to the Bandas. Both fared badly, their crews being captured and briefly imprisoned by the Dutch. A factor was again left on the Banda island of Ai and he was still there a year later when a much larger British fleet meekly withdrew at the first threat of a Dutch attack.
By now there had been regular visits to Run and Ai for ten years, and for at least six years there had been a permanent British representative on the islands. It could be argued that two isolated spice gardens, together totalling little more than three square miles, were scarcely worth an armed confrontation between two of the world’s strongest maritime nations. But that, according to Jourdain, was not the point. Principle was at stake. The Dutch based their claims on prior occupation and on the dubious treaties they had signed with the islanders. But in the case of Ai and Run the English could claim to have been first on the scene; and if documentary evidence were needed, it would be found.
In 1616 the Dutch prepared for another attack on Ai. On behalf of the Company, Captain Castleton agreed not to interfere so long as an English factor was allowed to continue on the island and so long as Run was recognized as being outside the Dutch sphere of monopoly. The Dutch commander agreed to these terms in writing. All that remained was to secure the consent of the Run islanders. It was not hard to come by. When the Dutch duly overran Ai, the headmen of both islands voluntarily and indeed eagerly pressed their little nutmeg seedling on Richard Hunt, the English factor. It was a token, he understood, that they formally made over their ‘cattel and countrie for the use of the English nation’. In due course it was ratified in an impressive document declaring King James I ‘by the grace of God, King of England, Scotland, Ireland, France, Puloway and Puloroon’. Henceforth the status of Run and Ai would involve more than commercial concessions and the rights of a trading company. The issue of national sovereignty was involved and the rights of the English Crown would have to be taken into account.
Escaping from Ai in the company of its loyal chiefs, Hunt made his way back to Bantam. There the outwitted Dutch showed what they thought of his treaty and his wilting nutmeg tree. Hunt was immediately waylaid in the street by a mob of Hollanders, beaten up, ‘hailed through the durte by the haire of the head’, and clamped in irons ‘in the hotte sun without hatt’. Jourdain retaliated by seizing a Dutch merchant and giving him the same treatment. Although the prisoners were eventually exchanged, English and Dutch now fought openly in the city’s lanes and Jourdain determined to strike back in the Bandas.
iv
In October 1616 Nathaniel Courthope, who had previously served in one of the Company’s speculative agencies on the Borneo coast, was despatched to the Bandas with the Swan and the Defence, both of 400 tons. His instructions were simple: occupy the island of Run and hold it – indefinitely. After purchasing such provisions as Macassar had to offer, he arrived on 23 December. The islanders again proclaimed their loyalty to King James while Courthope’s men ‘spread St. George upon the island and shot off most of our ordnance’. Christmas Day brought the first snooping Dutch vessel. Courthope hastily landed guns to command the only anchorage and thus began his long, anxious and soon forgotten resistance.
A variety of exotic fruits grew on Run but most of its 700 acres were down to nutmeg trees. Rice had to be imported, and to drink there was only such rain water as could be collected. The ships were therefore essential for any long-term defence; yet the ships were the first to go. In January the master of the Swan, ‘obstinately contrarying’ Courthope’s orders, took his vessel over to the largest of the Banda islands in search of fresh water. He was promptly captured. Five of his men were killed and the rest were clamped in irons and stowed aboard Dutch vessels. Two months later the Defence broke – or was cut – from her moorings and also came into Dutch possession. Using these ships and their crews as bargaining counters the Dutch commander opened negotiations; if Courthope would relinquish Run he would return both prizes and prisoners. Many of the prisoners also wrote urging compliance. They were being wretchedly treated and, worse still for men on the make, they had been robbed of all they possessed. ‘If I lose any more by your [Courthope’s] arrogance’, wrote the master of the Swan from his captivity, ‘our lives and blouds shall rest upon your head.’
Courthope refused to budge. He would not withdraw because to do so would be an act of treason to his king and a betrayal of the good people of Run. Instead he dispatched a prahu to Bantam urgently requesting assistance. It would be the first of many such pleas to go unanswered. Though Dutch ships repeatedly tested his defences, the year 1617 wore away with no sign of relief.
On 12 March 1618 the islands were shaken by a major earthquake. This triggered the volcano of Gunung Api, which for some years had been ominously grumbling as if to protest at the European presence. It erupted with unprecedented fury, showering the Dutch forts on neighbouring Neira with scorching debris. Two weeks later Courthope spied ‘two of our ships coming from the westwards with the last of the westerly winds’. Excitement mounted. The guns were primed for a mighty welcome and the English lined the rocks. But the first shot came not from the approaching ships but from the east. Four Dutch vessels, beating into the wind, were manoeuvring to cut off the English fleet. Their range was greater, the English ships lying low in the water under the weight of their provisions for the besieged. As the sun went down the issue