Page 68 - Early English Adventurers in the Middle East_Neat

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1 68 EARLY ENGLISH ADVENTURERS IN THE EAST

i detained for some time. Not long after lie obtained his
release his ship was wrecked on the coast of Western India.
i
As a final touch to the disasters of the voyage the other
large ship of his fleet, the Union, which had embarked a
cargo of spice at Achcen and Priaman, was wrecked on
the coast of Brittany on the way home. Better fortune
attended the last of the three voyages with which we are
!
now dealing—the fifth of the series—which was conducted
by David Middleton in 1609-11. Proceeding to the
; '
Moluccas and Banda Middleton did a brisk trade, in spite
of the open hostility of the Dutch, and the goods, with an
additional lading, he obtained at Bantam constituted a
very rich cargo which, when landed safely in England in
the late summer of 1611, produced a return which went
far to compensate for the loss on Sharpeigh’s unfortunate
voyage.
The year 1609 was in several ways an important one
for the Company. Its chief interest lies in the circumstance
i
that it witnessed the abandonment of the system of sepa­
rate investments for each voyage in favour of a common
stock, simultaneously with the renewal of the Company’s
charter for fifteen years with all its privileges of exclusive
ii
trading, subject to a proviso that in the event of the trade
not proving profitable to the realm the monopoly might
be withdrawn on three years’ notice being given. To
inaugurate the new era the Company had built the largest
ship which up to that time had ever left the stocks in Eng­
land. With its 1,100 tons burden, it was in the eyes of
.
the people of that age a veritable leviathan, and for very
many years after it represented the maximum size of
trading ships. In fact right down to the era of steam the
East Indiamen rarely exceeded that tonnage. The stan-