We Do
Not Pretend, In Our Collection, To Write The History Of The English East
India Company, But Merely To Give A Series Of The Voyages Which
Contributed To The Establishment Of That Princely Association Of
Merchant Adventurers.
Yet it seems proper, occasionally at least, in the
introductions to leading voyages, like the present, to give some
Short
historical notices of the subject, for the materials of which we are
chiefly, if not solely, indebted to the Annals of the Company, a work of
meritorious and laborious research, already several times referred to.
Under the difficulties which had long attended the exertions of the
English to acquire a share in this peculiarly called spice trade, the
agent and commercial council of the English company at Bantam, gave
authority to the commanders of the Swan and Defence to endeavour to
obtain from the native chiefs of the islands of Puloroon and Puloway, a
surrender of these islands to the king of England, with the stipulation
of paying annually as a quit-rent, a fruit-bearing branch of the nutmeg
tree; yet stipulating that these islanders were to continue entirely
under the guidance of their own laws and customs, providing only that
they should engage to sell their spices exclusively to the agents of the
English company, who were, in return, to supply them with provisions and
Hindoostan manufactures at a fair price, in exchange for their peculiar
productions, nutmegs and mace. They were likewise authorised, if they
procured the consent of the natives, to establish fortified stations, or
factories, at Puloroon, Puloway.
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