home such astounding proofs of the untold wealth of the various nations dwelling upon the shores of the great South Sea, and of the arrogant weakness of the twain bullies of Rome who wished to monopolise the plunder of those heathen, that the stout burghers and hardy seamen of Northern Europe, determined to contest that right in spite of Dons, Jesuits, or Inquisition. In 1598, two expeditions sailed from Holland—one from the Texel, and the other from Rotterdam. The Texel squadron of five ships was purely Dutch, commanded by one Jacques Mahay, whilst the Rotterdam fleet was a combined one, two out of the four vessels being English. It is worthy of note that the pilots of both these fleets were Englishmen, who had obtained great experience in long voyages. For instance, we find that in the Texel fleet there was William Adams of Gillingham, and his good friend Timothy Shotten, who had circumnavigated the globe a few years previously with Cavendish; whilst in the Rotterdam fleet another of Cavendish’s old followers, Captain Melish, undertook a similarly responsible task. It is foreign to our purpose to follow these stout seamen, these pioneers of Dutch and English enterprise, wealth, and success in the East, through their long and hazardous voyaging. The Rotterdam fleet saw and heard but twice of their brethren during many years, and in neither case was their intelligence cheering. In the Straits of Magellan, they met one of the Texel ships much shattered by weather, her crew broken down and disheartened, and only anxious to escape back in safety to their homes. They reported, however, that the ships in which were embarked the English pilots, Will Adams and Shotten, had proceeded into the Great Sea. Our Rotterdam friends, following Drake’s example, went direct from a little promiscuous plundering on the coast of South America to the Philippine Isles, in the hope of capturing something that would enrich them, and repay all their sufferings. Less fortunate, they had more hard knocks, and found no pieces of gold, no ryalls of plate, no galleon ladened with Mexican silver to exchange for Chinese produce. However, we find them one December morning of 1600, boarding off Manilla, a Japanese vessel, which had been twenty-five days out from a port of that country; and Oliver van Noort and Captain Melish then first learnt and recorded the news of the thriving trade of the Portugals in Japan, and how Japanese vessels came south “ladened with precious metals, and much victual.” The strong north-east monsoon of that season forbade Captain Melish proceeding in the direction of the much to be desired El Dorado, so he wisely turned highwayman, and obtained at “an easy rate,” as he naïvely remarks, all that they wanted, excepting gold and silver. During the cruise of this Rotterdam fleet we are told incidentally, that whilst in Borneo they heard from a Japanese ship, of the ultimate fate of the last of the other Dutch expedition. There is something touching in the words, in which Melish records his information. “We then heard,” he says, “of a great Hollander by tempests shaken, which had put into Japan, the company by famine and sickness all but fourteen dead!” Let us turn to the adventures of that great Hollander, and her gallant survivors. On a spring morning, supposed to be the 11th April, 1600, a sea-worn, tempest-tossed vessel drifted rather than sailed into a port upon the east coast of Kiu-siu, or Bongo. She was the only survivor of the squadron of five which had sailed from the Texel in 1598. The last of her consorts, piloted by Timothy Shotten, went down in the deep sea of the North Pacific, and she (The Erasmus), had much to do to reach any haven. From the letters subsequently received from Japan, written by the English pilot of The Erasmus, we learn how dire was their necessity; for when the anchor was joyfully let go in that port, “hard unto Bungo,” he, Will Adams, of the strong heart, and ten others of her company were only able to creep about upon their hands and knees, and the rest, amongst whom was the captain, looked every moment for death. The Japanese received these new-comers with kindness, and the authorities were not a little astonished to find there were others, as bold seamen, as enterprising navigators, as they of Portugal and Spain.
Fusi-hama seen through the rain. (Fac-simile.)
