All the commodities I brought to this place had been well sold, if this trouble had not come upon us. You shall do well to send a messenger in all speed by land from Basora to Aleppo, to give notice of this mischance, even though it may cost 30 or 40 crowns, that we may be the sooner released, and I shall thereby be the better able to recover again what is now like to be lost.
From prison in Ormus, this 21st September 1583.
No. 5.-Letter Mr J. Newbery to Messrs Eldred and Scales.
The bark of the Jews is arrived here two days ago, by which I am sure you wrote; but your letters are not likely to come to my hands. The bringer of this hath shewed me very great courtesy, for which I pray you to shew him what favour you can. About the middle of next month, I think we shall depart from hence: God be our guide. I think Andrew will go by land to Aleppo; and I pray you to further him what you may: But, if he should not go, then I pray you to dispatch a messenger in all speed. I can say no more, but beg you to do for me what I should do for you in the like case.
From prison in Ormus, the 24th September 1583.
No. 6.-Letter from Mr Newbery to Mr Leonard Poore.
My last from Ormus certified you what had happened to me there, with the rest of my company; as in four days after our arrival we were all committed to prison, except one Italian, who came with me from Aleppo, whom the captain never examined, except asking what countryman he was; but I believe Michael Stropene, who accused us, had informed the captain of him. The first day of our arrival at Ormus, this Stropene accused us of being spies for Don Antonio, besides diverse other lies; yet if we had been of any other country than England, we might freely have traded with them. Although we be Englishmen, I know no reason why we may not as well trade from place to place as the natives of other countries; for all nations may and do come freely to Ormus, as Frenchmen, Flemings, Germans, Hungarians, Italians, Greeks, Armenians, Nazarenes, Turks, Moors, Jews, and Gentiles, Persians, and Muscovites. In short, there is no nation they seek to trouble, but only ours; wherefore it were contrary to all justice and reason that they should suffer all nations to trade with them, and forbid us. Now indeed I have as great liberty as those of any other nation, except it be to leave the country, which as yet I desire not. But hereafter, and I think ere long, if I shall be desirous to go from hence, that they will not refuse me licence. Before we were suffered to come out of prison, I was forced to put in sureties for 2000 pardaos, not to depart from hence without licence of the viceroy; and except this, we have now as much liberty as any one, for I have got back our goods, and have taken a house in the chiefest street called the Rue drette, where we sell our goods.
There were two causes which moved the captain of Ormus to imprison us, and afterwards to send us to Goa. The first was because Michael Stropene had most falsely accused us of many matters. The other was, because when Mr Drake was at the Molucca islands, he caused two pieces of cannon to be fired at a Portuguese galeon belonging to the king, at least so they allege. But of these things I did not know when at Ormus. In the same ship which brought us to Goa, came the chief justice of Ormus, called the veedor general of that place, who had been there three years, so that his time was expired. This veedor is a great friend to the captain of Ormus, and sent for me into his chamber, one day after coming here to Goa, and began to demand many things at me, to which I made answers. Among other things, he said that Mr Drake had been sent out of England with many ships, and had gone to Molucca where he loaded cloves, and finding a Portuguese galeon there belonging to the king, had shot two pieces of his great ordnance against her. Perceiving this grieved them much, I asked if they meant to be revenged on me for what had been done by Mr Drake: To which he answered no; though his meaning was yes.
He said moreover, that the captain of Ormus had sent me to Goa, that the viceroy might learn the news from me respecting Don Antonio, and whether he were in England or not; and that it might possibly be all for the best my being sent hither; which I trust in God may so fall out, though contrary to his expectation and intention: For, if it had not pleased God to influence the minds of the archbishop, and two padres or Jesuits of the college of St Paul, to stand our friends, we might have rotted in prison. The archbishop is a very good man, who has two young men in his service, one called Bernard Borgers born in Hamburgh, and the other named John Linscot436, a native of Enkhuysen, who did us especial service; for by them the archbishop was often reminded of our case. The two good fathers who laboured so much for us were padre Mark, a native of Bruges in Flanders, and padre Thomas Stevens437, born in Wiltshire in England. I chanced likewise to fall in with here a young man, Francis de Rea, who was born in Antwerp, but was mostly brought up in London, with whom I became acquainted in Aleppo, who also has done me much service.
We remained many days in prison at Ormus, and were a long while at sea coming hither. Immediately on our arrival at this place we were sent to prison, whence next day we were brought before the chief justice or veedor, to be examined, after which we were remanded to prison. When we had been thirteen days in prison, James Storie, the painter who accompanied us, went into the monastery of St Paul, where he remains, being made one of the company, which life he seems to like438. Upon St Thomas day, 12th December, 22 days after our arrival here, I was liberated from prison, and the next day Ralph Fitch and William Bets439 came out.
If these troubles had not occurred, I think I was in a fair way of making as good a voyage as was ever made with such a sum of money. Many of our things I sold very well, both here and at Ormus while in prison, although the captain of Ormus wished me to have sold all I had before I embarked; so, by his permission, I went sundry times from the castle in the mornings, accompanied by officers, and sold things, and returned again at night to prison. They wrote down every thing that I sold; and at my embarking, the captain directed me to deliver all my money and goods into the hands of the scrivano or purser of the ship, which I did, and the scrivano left an acknowledgement with the captain, that myself with the money and goods should be delivered up to the veedor general in India. But on our arrival here, the veedor would not meddle with either money or goods, seeing that no crime was substantiated against us: Wherefore the goods remained in the ship nine or ten days after our arrival; and then, as the ship was to sail from thence, the scrivano sent the goods on shore, where they remained a day and a night without any one to receive them. In the end, they permitted the bearer of this letter to receive them, who put them into a house which he hired for me, in which they remained four or five days. When afterwards they ought to have delivered the money, it was ordered by the veedor, that both the money and goods should be given into the custody of the positor, where they remained for fourteen days after I was liberated from prison.
When in Aleppo, I bought a fountain of silver gilt, six knives, six spoons, and one fork, all trimmed with coral, for 25 chekins, which the captain of Ormus took to himself and only paid 20 pardaos, or 100 larines, though they were worth there or here at Goa 100 chekins. Also he had five emeralds set in gold, worth five or six hundred crowns, for which he only paid 100 pardaos. He likewise took 19-1/2 pikes of cloth, which cost 20 shillings the pike at London, and was worth 9 or 10 crowns the pike at Ormus, for which he only paid 12 larines. He also had two pieces of green kersie, worth 24 pardaos each; besides divers other more trifling articles which he and the officers took at similar inferior prices, and some for nothing at all. But the real cause of all was Michal Stropene, who came to Ormus without a penny, and is now worth thirty or forty thousand crowns, and is grieved that any stranger should trade there but himself. But that shall not avail him; for I trust yet to go both hither and thither, and to buy and sell as freely as he or any other.
436
John Huighen van Linschoten, the author of the book respecting the East Indies, formerly quoted, and from which a second quotation will be given in this supplement. –E.
437
This is he whose letter to his father from Goa has been already inserted, and who was sometime of New College in Oxford.-Hakluyt.
439
In the narrative of Fitch no such name occurs, but William Leedes jeweller, is named as one of the party. Perhaps he ought to have been named by Fitch, William Bets of Leeds. –E.