The 23d, Having Token On Board
4900 Bags Of Pepper, I Prepared For Our Homeward Voyage; And On The 27th
I appointed the following members of our factory at that place:
Augustine Spalding chief factor, at L50 a year; Francis
Kellie surgeon,
at 40s. a month; John Parsons at 30s. a month; Robert Neale 29s.
Augustine Adwell 24s. Etheldred Lampre 20s. William Driver 20s. William
Wilson 22s. William Lamwell 16s. Philip Badnedge 16s. Francisco Domingo
12s. Juan Seraon 10s. Adrian, Mr Towerson's boy, 10s.[181] Using every
possible diligence to get away, I hired six persons to go along with us
for England in assistance to our crew; and on the 30th, delivered over
the charge of the factory to Spalding, giving him strict injunctions to
beware of the Dutch insolence and hatred towards us, and therefore to
have as little intercourse with them as possible.
[Footnote 181: These wages are here particularized, as a curious record
of the original wages of the Company's servants in India. - E.]
I took leave of the governor or regent of Bantam on the 2d October,
1609, requesting his favour to our factory, which he promised with
seeming heartiness; and on the 3d I went on board, after taking leave of
all our friends. The 1st November we were in lat. 25 deg. S. with 24 deg.
variation, being by our reckoning 650 leagues from Bantam, which we had
run in 24 days. The 29th, in lat. 32 deg. 30' S. and above 13 deg. variation, we
had all day a severe gale of wind, which at night became a storm at
W.S.W. from the northward,[182] and put us to try with our main course,
continuing all night and next day. In this, as sundry times before, we
found the report of Linschot to be true, that generally all easterly
winds, coming about to the northwards, if accompanied by rain, come
presently round to W.S.W. with considerable violence.
[Footnote 182: This expression is unintelligible; but from the sequel,
it appears the gale had been originally easterly, had then changed to
the north, and finally settled in a storm at W.S.W. - E.]
Early in the morning of the 8th December, 1609, we fell in with the
Terra de Natal, some six leagues west, being at noon in lat. 81 deg. 27'
S. with the variation about 8 deg. 30', we standing S.S.E. under low sails,
with the wind at S.W. We met a Hollander, from whom we learnt that the
Erasmus, a ship of the fleet which went home from Bantam at the time of
my arrival there in the Dragon, had sprung a leak at sea; and, being
left by the rest of the fleet, steered for the Mauritius, where she
unladed her goods, which were loft there with twenty-five persons till
they and the goods could be sent for, the rest of her company being in
this vessel. They farther told us, that there are two harbours in the
island of Mauritius; one called the north-west harbour, in somewhat less
than 20 deg.
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