At Our Entrance Into The Straits Of
Sunda, On The 16th Of That Month, We Met The Dragon On Her Homeward
Voyage, By Which Ship We Sent Letters To England.
Next day, the 17th, we
anchored in Bantam roads, and went immediately ashore to provide our
lodging, and by the 29th our whole cargo was completed.
We set sail from Bantam on the 2d January, 1614, for England, not having
hitherto lost a single man by sickness during our whole voyage, for
which we were thankful to God. This same day, as we were going out by
way of Pulo Panian, we met General Saris in the Clove, then returning
from Japan; and we came to anchor, that we might have his letters for
England, together with four chests. We likewise spared him two of our
hands, of which he was in great need; one being a youth, named Mortimer
Prittie, and the other a carpenter's mate, named Thomas Valens, as he
had not a single carpenter alive in his ship.
Having settled all these matters with the Clove, we resumed our voyage
for England on the 4th January, and came to anchor in Saldanha bay on
the 21st March, where we got a sufficient supply of beeves and sheep
from the natives, with abundance of fish, caught in our own seine. We
left that place on the 9th April, with prosperous winds, which continued
favourable till we were three degrees north of the equator, which we
crossed the 11th May. When in lat. 00 deg. 22' N. many of our men began to
fall sick, some of them of the scurvy, and with swelled legs. On the
10th July, 1614, by the blessing of God, we came to anchor in the Downs.
CHAPTER XI.
CONTINUATION OF THE EARLY VOYAGES OF THE ENGLISH EAST INDIA COMPANY TO
INDIA.
INTRODUCTION.
In the immediately preceding chapter, we have given a series of the
first twelve voyages fitted out by the English East India Company, in
the prosecution of their exclusive trade to India, as preserved by
Samuel Purchas; and we now mean, chiefly from the same source, to
continue the series for a few years longer. At the close of the last
voyage of the foregoing chapter, Purchas informs us, that "The order of
reckoning must be now altered, because the voyages of the company were
for the future set forth by means of a joint stock, instead of by
particular ships, each upon a separate subscription, having separate
stocks and factories; the whole proceedings being, in the sequel, at the
general risk of, and accountable to the entire society or company of
adventurers." He farther adds, "That the whole of these joint-stock
voyages had not come into his hands; but that such as he had been able
to procure, and were meet for publication, he had inserted in his
Collection."
The learned historiographer of the East India Company[120] gives rather
a different account of the former series of separate or unconnected
voyages, than that which we have taken from Purchas, terming the last
voyage in our former chapter only the ninth, while Purchas denominates
it the twelfth.
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