Muskets, called cauching, each barrel
worth 20 dollars. Japan sabres or cattans, called samto, are worth 8
dollars each. The best and largest elephants teeth, called ga, worth
200 dollars the pekul, and small ones 100 dollars. White saunders,
called toawheo, the best large logs sell for 40 dollars the pekul.
In China, the custom of pepper inwards is one taile upon a pekul, but
no custom is paid outwards. Great care is taken to prevent carrying any
kind of warlike ammunition out of the country. In March, the junks bound
for Manilla depart from Chuchu, in companies of four, five, ten, or
more, as they happen to be ready; their outward lading being raw and
wrought silks, but of far better quality than those they carry to
Bantam. The ordinary voyage from Canton to Manilla is made in ten days.
They return from Manilla in the beginning of June, bringing back
dollars, and there are not less than forty sail of junks yearly employed
in this trade. Their force is absolutely nothing, so that the whole
might be taken by a ship's boat. In China this year, 1608, pepper was
worth 6-1/2 tailes the pekul, while at the same time it was selling in
Bantam for 2-1/2 dollars the timbang.
SECTION III.
Second Voyage of the English East India Company, in 1604, under the
Command of Captain Henry Middleton.[152]
INTRODUCTION.
There are two relations of this voyage in the Pilgrims of Purchas, or
rather accounts of two separate voyages by different ships of the fleet;
which consisted of four, the Red Dragon, admiral, Captain Henry
Middleton general; the Hector, vice-admiral, Captain Sorflet; the
Ascension, Captain Colthurst; and the Susan. These were, in all
probability, the same ships which had been in the former voyage under
Lancaster. The former of these journals, written on board the admiral,
confines itself chiefly to Captain Middleton's transactions at Bantam
and the Moluccas; having sent Captain Colthurst in the Ascension to
Banda. The latter contains the separate transactions of Captain
Colthurst, and is described as a brief extract from a larger discourse
written by Thomas Clayborne, who seems to have sailed in the Ascension;
and, besides describing what particularly relates to the trip to Banda,
gives some general account of the whole voyage. In the Pilgrims of
Purchas, these narratives are transposed, the former being given in vol.
I. p. 703, and the latter in vol. I. p. 185. "But should have come in
due place before, being the second voyage of the company, if we had then
had it: But better late than never." Such is the excuse of Purchas for
misplacement, and we have therefore here placed the two relations in
their proper order, in separate subdivisions of the section. The first
indeed is a very bald and inconclusive article, and gives hardly any
information respecting the object and success of the voyage to the
Moluccas.
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