to seek spices and pepper in exchange. Such
were the beginnings of English trade on the east of the Indian
peninsula. Two years later the company's servants received from the
Hindu King of Vitayanagar a firman to build a fort, written on a leaf of
gold--a document which was preserved at Madras until its capture by the
French in the next century.

Following hard upon their summary dismissal from Surat, Middleton,
Hawkins, and the rest, disinclined for their masters' sake to come to
close quarters with the Dutch in the Spice Islands, directed their views
to the establishment of a factory at Dabul. In this likewise they
failed. In despair at not procuring a cargo, they went in for piracy and
fierce retaliation upon the Turkish authorities for their treatment of
them in the Red Sea. A couple of vessels hailing from Cochin were
captured, and some cloves, cinnamon, wax, bales of china silk, and rice
were taken out of them and removed to the ship Trade's Increase.

In the midst of a lively blockade of the Red Sea ports they were joined
by Captain John Saris, with four ships, belonging to the company's
eighth voyage, who agreed to lend his forces for whatever the combined
fleets undertook, if granted a third of the profits for the benefit of
his particular set of subscribers. All this anomalous confusion between
the various interests within the same body corporate could have but one
issue. The rival commanders took to quarrelling over the disposition of
the hundred thousand pieces-of-eight which Middleton hoped to squeeze
out of the Governor of Mocha for outrages upon the English fleet. Strife
ran high between them, and in the end Saris in the Clove and Towerson in
the Hector sailed away from the Red Sea, leaving Middleton and Downton
to settle matters on their own account.

Powerless to obtain compensation from the Governor of Mocha, Middleton
proceeded to make unceremonious levy on all the shipping he could lay
his hands upon. On August 16th the Trade's Increase set sail, in company
with the Peppercorn, for Tiku, where two others of the company's ships
were anchored. Middleton very soon discovered that the Trade's Increase
was in a leaky condition; he had hardly got her out of Tiku when she ran
aground--for the second time in her brief history. She was floated and
brought opposite Pulo Panzang, in Bantam Bay, where the cargo was taken
out and stored on shore. The ship, which King James had christened and
in which Sir Henry