Nathaniel's nutmeg

by Giles Milton

  The directors of the Dutch East India Company were embarrassed by the incident and took the unusual step of issuing an official statement of what had happened:

  Your President and our Commander came above the hatches and began to confer (while the two ships were alongside). Our other ships could not be advertised of the aforesaid parley by reason of shortness of time. The Morning Star coming up fired in ignorance of what before had passed between the chiefs of both fleets. A musket shot hit your President in the belly, without any special aim, but the mishap might as well have befallen our own Commander because a cannon ball (from the Morning Star) went through his own ship.

  Whether true or not, Coen's position was considerably strengthened by the deaths of Dale and Jourdain. He now had just one thorn in his side, Nathaniel Courthope, who was as resolute as ever about the defence of his island fortress.

  The dreadful news about Sir Thomas Dale's fleet took time to reach Run. On 13 February 1619, more than a month after the sea battle, Courthope spied three Dutch ships heading for Neira, 'one whereof had her beak-head shot off, and shot through in forty places'. His spies informed him that Coen was at Amboyna, busily assembling a huge fleet with which to launch a massive attack against Jakarta. Soon after, Courthope learned to his dismay that the bulk of Dale's fleet had sailed for India. 'This was cold comfort to me,' he wrote in his journal, 'which had neither direction nor stocks.' The news soon got worse. Courthope was informed of Jourdains death in a letter from his old friend George Muschamp, himself on the verge of death. 'I [am] in miserable torture with the losse of my right legge (shot off with a canon) for want of medicines to apply to it ... I doe not much value my life, and have every day lesse comfort and courage to remain in these parts.' His letter ends with the news that Courthope's defiance has spread far and wide: 'and I make no question [that] our honourable Masters will truly value your deserts'. Indeed they did: with glowing reports of Courthope's defiance filtering back to London the directors voted that he be awarded a gift of £100 a year for services to King and Company.

  When Courthope learned that he and his men had been abandoned to their fate his most sensible course would have been to surrender to the Dutch. His heroic stand had been way beyond the call of duty and he could have retired with honour intact. But to submit now, after more than three years of hardship, was not in Courthope's nature. He was to choose a far more glorious path, vowing to fight to the bitter end in defence of his island stronghold. He no longer had any money and was reduced to bartering his men's remaining possessions for essential supplies, but there was never enough food for everyone and the sick began to die, often from dysentery contracted from the foul water. 'We have rubbed off the skinne alreadie,' he writes, referring to their destitution,'and if we rub any longer, shall rub to the bone.' Each day Courthope would rally his malnourished men, urging them to stand resolute in the face of Dutch brutality. And each day his men would vow to stand by 'the captain', greeting his words with noisy acclaim. They manned their defences, primed their cannon, and awaited the imminent Dutch onslaught.

  On 18 October 1620, Courthope was heartened by some good news. The men of Great Banda had risen up against the Dutch and plunged the island into turmoil. It was rumoured that they now wished to join Courthope's men in a full-scale attack on the hated Hollanders. For Courthope, this news came not a moment too soon and he immediately decided to visit Great Banda and instil in the natives the same sense of resolution that he had brought to his band of Englishmen. But these men, reliant for so long on their captain, were most unhappy about him sailing to Great Banda — even under the cover of darkness — and petitioned him to think again. 'I prayed him to stay,' wrote Robert Hayes, his number two, 'but hee refused.'

  'Thus went he over that night with his Boy William, wel fitted with muskets and weapons; promising to returne in five dayes.' But unbeknown to anyone there had been a traitor lurking on Run. A lone Hollander, who had passed himself off as a deserter, had sent message of Courthope's movements to the Dutch governor-general in Neira. The governor-general could scarcely believe his good fortune and acted immediately, equipping a heavily armed pinnace and despatching it to sea with one simple order: kill the troublesome Englishman. Nothing was left to chance; the assassins planned precisely where they would attack Courthope, in a treacherous channel of water where the current and tides would leave him no manoeuvrability.

  The Dutch soldiers put to sea as night fell and lay in wait some two miles off Ai's coastline. For hours they saw nothing but the dim outline of the island, but at 'about two or three a clocke in the morning' a lantern came into view — Courthope's boat. In the pitch darkness they waited until he was almost upon them, trapped and surrounded, before suddenly opening fire with their muskets. In a flash Courthope was firing back, his weapon ready loaded in preparation for just such an attack. But right from the outset it was an uneven battle. Although Courthope momentarily silenced the Dutch guns, he noticed a second boat approaching, armed with 'some fortie small shot'. Undeterred, he returned shot for shot until his 'piece being choked', he could fire no more. Hurling his gun into the water, he was now a sitting duck - an unarmed and defenceless target for more than fifty Dutch soldiers. His final end was not long in coming. 'Receiving a shot on the brest [he] sate downe ... then leapt over-boord in his clothes.' It was the last time he was seen alive.

  News that Courthope had been 'slain by Hollanders' filtered slowly across the Banda Islands and it was not until 27 October 1620, more than a week after his death, that the Englishmen on Run learned of the treachery that had killed their captain. They were devastated by what they were told. For four years they had been led by the inspired Courthope and had suffered the greatest of hardships in withstanding a force hundreds of times stronger than their own. Now, 'the captain' was dead and their future as bleak as it was uncertain. After allowing the men to recover from the initial shock, Courthope's second-in-command, Robert Hayes, summoned a council and asked them if they would accept him as their leader. There was not a moment's hesitation. With a tremendous cry,'they all promised that as they had been ruled by the captaine, so now they would be ruled by Robert Hayes.'

  It was a brave show but with Courthope's death the men had lost their defiance and their heroic stand on Run was nearing its tragic end. With the loss of more men to sickness, the long nightly watches broke the spirit of these half-starved survivors, particularly as there was no longer 'the captain' to rouse them. Their last day came soon enough. The Dutch governor-general sent twenty-five ships and a huge army to Run with the intention of leading a massive frontal assault on the island, 'whereupon the blacks came to Mr Hayes and asked him whether he would defend them, and told him if he would then they would fight it out to the last man. But Mr Hayes answered that he was not able, nor could not.'

  So the Dutch 'landed unopposed' and harangued the 'poor miserable people of the island'. Knowing that the tiny band of Englishmen were finished, the Dutch reserved all their anger for the natives. 'They forced the country people to dismount the ordnance from the two English forts on the great island, and threw them down on the rocks; four were broken, the rest remained on the sands altogether unservicable.' Next they ordered the natives to demolish the island's defences 'with their own hands ... so that before night there was not one stone left upon another; and ranging the whole island, caused all the walls, little and great, to be made even with the ground, not so much as sparing the monuments of the dead'. Once this was complete they took all the chieftains prisoner, publicly humiliating them by compelling each and every one to submit to the Dutch 'by presenting them with a nutmeg tree in a basin, as is the custom of these parts'. Their last act before sailing away was to rip down the flag of St George that was still flying in the village. It was replaced by the Dutch colours, signifying the end of a siege that had lasted 1,540 days.

  The English were no less humiliated. Forced to watch their island fortress being dismantled, they were then summoned to the Dutch commander who con­t
emptuously informed them that they could keep Nailaka, the sandy atoll adjoining Run. With no nutmeg trees it was useless to the Dutch; with cannon trained upon it from Run, it was equally useless to the English. Hayes and his men stayed on the island only long enough to catch a passing boat and escape to Amboyna.

  'Thus was Pooloroon lost,' wrote Captain Sir Humphrey

  Fitzherbert, the newly arrived captain of an English fleet, 'which in Mr Courthope's time by his good resolution with a few men maintained itself to their [the Dutch] disgrace, and now by the fearfulness of Mr Hayes and his irresolution is fearfully lost'. Such words are unfair on Hayes and do not sit easily with Captain Fitzherbert's own actions. When he arrived in the area in charge of a heavily armed vessel, the only shots he fired were a brief salvo nervously to celebrate the Dutch victory.

  Courthope's defiance would ultimately pay handsome dividends, but his cruel death passed quietly into English history and we look in vain for any tomb or epitaph commemorating this very English hero. Even his final resting place remains a mystery: 'And what became of him I know not,' wrote Hayes at the time, 'but the blacks said surely he there sunke, by reason of his wounds and his clothes all about him.'

  Yet he later received information, brought by a Dutchman, that suggested the English captain had been buried with full honours and given a tomb befitting to his heroism. 'The Captaine Nathaniel is killed in the prow,' said this Dutchman, 'for which God knoweth I was heartily sorie. We have buried him so stately and honestly as ever we could fitting for such a man.'

  chapter eleven

  Trial by Fire and Water

  N

  athaniel Courthope's murder left Coen in a seemingly invincible position. For almost four years this stubborn Englishman had been a thorn in his side, thwarting his ambitions of total dominance in the Spice Islands. Now he was dead, leaving the Dutchman with unchallenged control of the Banda Islands.

  During the long years of siege, Coen had concentrated his efforts in other parts of the East Indies. He had wasted no time in regrouping his forces after his flight from Sir Thomas Dale. Heading for Amboyna, he had trained his men for battle, then led them back to Jakarta where he vowed to flatten every building in the town. He attacked within two days of arriving, leading his thousand-strong force from the front. Although the local population outnumbered the Dutch by more than three to one, they soon lost heart and their defences crumbled. True to his word, Coen had the towers and fortifications destroyed and the rest of the town burned to the ground. By the end of the day Jakarta had ceased to exist. When it rose again from the ashes it was built to Coen's specifications as befitted the 'capital' of the Dutch East Indies. It was given the new name Batavia in honour of the first tribes who had settled in the Netherlands.

  Coen immediately informed Amsterdam of his triumph: 'It is certain that this victory and the fleeing of the English will create quite a furore throughout the Indies,' he wrote. 'This will enhance the honour and the reputation of the Dutch nation. Now everyone will want to be our friend.'

  Within a week of his arrival in Java, Coen had reversed the balance of power. His next plan was nothing less than the total annihilation of the English fleet whose ships were scattered over a wide area of ocean. But scarcely had he given the order to sink every vessel east of Arabia than a messenger arrived at Batavia bearing wholly unexpected news. To Coen's astonishment he was informed that in July 1619, the Dutch East India Company, together with its English counterpart, had signed an agreement whereby all fighting between the two companies must cease at once. The document, known as the Treaty of Defence, was the fruit of the third Anglo-Dutch conference which had been summoned to discuss the deteriorating situation in the East. After much argument the two sides decided that all grievances should be 'forgiven and forgotten'. Captured ships were to be returned, prisoners released and employers, 'both high and low, should henceforth live and converse as trusted friends'. The most important clause of the treaty stated that the English were to be granted one third of all trade in the Spice Islands. In return, the English agreed to take active steps to defend the region from the Spanish and Portuguese.

  Coen was stunned when he read the terms of the treaty. 'The English owe you a debt of gratitude,' he wrote to his employers, 'because after they have worked themselves out of the Indies, your Lordships put them right back again ... it is incomprehensible that the English should be allowed one third of the cloves, nutmegs and mace [since] they cannot lay claim to a single grain of sand in the Moluccas,

  Amboyna, or Banda.' With the stroke of a pen all his hard work had come undone.

  Had the Dutch directors known the true picture in the East Indies it is doubtful that they would have signed the treaty. But with their signatures duly attached Coen was left with just two options: to abide by its terms or to wreck it. Given his hatred of the English it is scarcely surprising that he chose the latter option, playing his hand with characteristic skill.

  The treaty had called for the establishment of a joint Fleet of Defence in which the English would supply one third of the men, money and ships and the Dutch would supply the rest. This fleet was to complete the expulsion of the Spanish and Portuguese from the East Indies, destroying their remaining bases in the Malay Peninsula, China, and the Philippines, and to act as a naval patrol force to guard the monopoly on spices. Coen was well aware that the English had few ships at their disposal and with this in mind proposed long and time-consuming expeditions across huge expanses of ocean. Within months the English were struggling to meet their side of the deal.

  Coen now saw his chance. He had always vowed to crush the Banda Islands but had hesitated in recent months because any military expedition would have to include English ships. Knowing that these were all currently at sea, Coen now proposed a massive expedition and when the English argued that they lacked resources he accused them of reneging on the deal and haughtily informed them that he would proceed without them.

  His fleet arrived at Neira Island in the spring of 1621, anchoring under the guns of Fort Nassau. Here he gathered his forces, assembling a fleet of 13 large ships, 36 barges and 3 messenger boats, as well as an army of 1,600 men and 80 Japanese mercenaries, most of them experts in the art of execution. It was the largest force ever seen in the Bandas and it was augmented by a band of freed slaves, Dutch townspeople and the 250-strong garrison of Fort Nassau.

  Despite the humiliating capitulation of Run, a handful of English were still living on the Banda Islands. Great Banda was home to an English merchant, two helpers and eight Chinese guards, while a couple of men continued to stage a token resistance to the Dutch on the tiny atoll of Nailaka. To these hardy survivors Coen now sent a message inviting them to take part in the forthcoming invasion of Great Banda. All declined his offer - a response that came as no surprise to Coen who had been informed that there were many other English secretly training Bandanese soldiers.

  The forthcoming invasion placed the English merchant, Robert Randall, in something of a quandary. Many of the village elders stood by their former submission to the English king and, claiming that Great Banda was technically English soil, reminded Randall that any attack on the island would effectively be an attack on His Majesty. Desperate to delay the invasion, Randall wrote a strongly worded letter to Coen advising him 'not to attempt any violence'. Needless to say Coen was most displeased to receive such a letter and 'threw [it] from him in a great rage, scarce vouchsafing to reade it over, and caused the messenger to be thrust out of doores'. As the poor man picked himself up from the dirt, Coen warned him to escape while he could, 'for whomsoever he should find [on Great Banda] he would take them as his utter enemies, and they should fare no better than the inhabitants'.

  Prior to his attack Coen sent his yacht, the Hert, to circle its coastline. The boat came under sustained and extremely accurate musket fire which cost the lives of two crew

  members and injured ten others. The Hert's commander re­ported that he had identified no less than a dozen forts clo
se to the shore. Furthermore, all the island's ridges were heavily fortified, and he had sighted numerous English gunners.

  Great Banda had long been a magnet for thousands of disaffected Bandanese who had taken refuge in its wild and inaccessible mountain range. It was, according to one English visitor, 'the greatest and richest iland of all the iles of Banda; strong and almost inaccessible, as it were a castle'. The village of Lonthor on the island's northern coasdine was an almost impregnable stronghold 'situate on the brow of a sharpe hill, the ascent as difficult as by a ladder'. It had three lines of fortifications and each of these was lined with cannons and muskets which could be trained on passing ships with devastating effect. Coen's men knew the risks of attacking the island and lost heart before the fight had even begun. To rally his troops the Dutch governor-general made an impassioned speech about glory and destiny, urging his men to fight with honour and courage. Then, hoping to confuse the enemy, he landed them at a number of different points on Great Banda. The Dutch fought with considerable daring, scaling the sea cliffs and crawling along ledges and promontories in order to capture key positions. It was an uneven struggle and the invaders were repulsed on numerous occasions because 'one man above was worth twenty below', but by the end of the first day they had most of the lowlands under their control. In this they were helped by the treachery of the Bandanese. At the strategic position of Lakoy, a native guided the attackers through a hidden rear entrance in return for two hundred and fifty pieces-of- eight, while at Orantatta small purses of gold were awarded to any Bandanese who would betray his fellow fighters. With the use of bribes, treachery and daring Great Banda was eventually brought under control and the great defences of Lonthor fell into Dutch hands after a tough struggle on the evening of the second day The Dutch lost just six men in the attack with a further twenty-seven injured.