Page 55 - Early English Adventurers in the Middle East_Neat

CHAPTER III
A Fight to a Finish

James I gives Michelbome a licence to trade in the East—Michei-
bome's voyage to the East with Davis as chief lieutenant—
Acts of piracy off the Javan coast—English ships fall in with a
Japanese pirate vessel—Sudden attack by the Japanese—A
terrific combat—Davis is slain—A happy thought—Defeat and
extermination of the Japanese—Michelbome returns home

I N the period of Lancaster’s absence on his voyage the
great Elizabeth had passed to her rest. Her suc­
cessor, James I, was to a certain extent in the position of
the king who knew not Joseph. He was not only lacking
in his predecessor’s enthusiasm for the cause of trade
expansion in the East, but his mind failed to grasp the
essential conditions on which a policy of the kind could
then be successfully prosecuted. On no other basis
than as a monopolistic power—as the accredited commercial
representative of England—could the East India Company
hope to make good its footing and that of its country in
the distant regions of the Orient. Elizabeth fully realized
this when she gave the Company its exclusive charter and
invested its representative with powers which were hardly
to be distinguished from those of an ambassador. James
I, on the other hand, appears to have felt that a ship or
two in the East more or less did not matter, and that it was
for the conflicting interests to fight out their differences
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