Page 46 - Early English Adventurers in the Middle East_Neat

4G EARLY ENGLISH ADVENTURERS IN THE EAST

intrinsic value of the gifts. They included “ a bason of i
silver with a fountain in the midst of it weighing 205 '
ounces, a great standing cup of silver, a rich looking-glass i
and headpiece with a plume of feathers, a case of very
line daggers, a rich wrought embroidered belt to hang a
sword on, and a fan of feathers.”. The King immediately
B pounced upon the fan, “ and caused one of his women to

fan him thcrewithall, as a thing that most pleased him of all
the rest.” Later the visitors were entertained at a ban­
quet, where they ate off plates of precious metal and were
entertained with dancing damsels, “ richly attired and
adorned with bracelets and jewels.” Finally, Lancaster and
his chief lieutenants were invested with robes of honour
and equipped each with a kris, the Malay dagger, which is
a symbol of authority. In this honorific fashion they
were dismissed to their ships. i
The Elizabethen letter, which with so much ceremony
had been conveyed to the Acheen prince, [was a highly
characteristic effusion embodying the royal sentiments as
to the establishment of a trade connexion with the English
Company. She promised the King that he should be
very well served and better contented than he had pre­
viously been with the Portugals and Spaniards, the enemies
of England, who “ only and none else of these regions,” the
Queen went on to say, “ have frequented those your, and
the other kingdoms of the East: not suffering that the
other nations should doe it, pretending themselves to be
monarchs and absolute lords of all these kingdoms and
provinces as their own conquest and inheritance as appeareth
by their lofty title in their writings.” Then came the pith
of the document—an application for a site for a factory
and for protection for those who might be left to manage it.

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