The Promoters Of This Enterprise, Seem To Have Been
Actuated By A More Than Ordinary Spirit Of Research For Those Times, By
Employing A Painter To Accompany Their Commercial Agents.
It is farther
presumable that the promoters of the expedition, and their agents,
Newbery and Fitch, were members of
The Turkey company; and though the
speculation turned out unsuccessful, owing to causes sufficiently
explained in the narrative and its accompanying documents, it is
obviously a prelude to the establishment of the English East India
Company; which, from small beginnings, has risen to a colossal height of
commercial and sovereign grandeur, altogether unexampled in all history.
[Footnote 402: Hakluyt, II. 382.]
Hakluyt gives the following descriptive title of this uncommonly curious
and interesting narrative: "The voyage of Mr Ralph Fitch, merchant of
London, by the way of Tripolis in Syria to Ormus, and so to Goa in the
East India, to Cambaia, and all the kingdom, of Zelabdim Echebar the
great Mogor, to the mighty river Ganges, and down to Bengala, to Bacola
and Chonderi, to Pegu, to Imahay in the kingdom of Siam, and back to
Pegu, and from thence to Malacca, Zeilan, Cochin, and all the coast of
the East India; begun in the year of our Lord 1583, and ended in 1591:
wherein the strange rites, manners, and customs of those people, and the
exceeding rich trade and commodities of those countries, are faithfully
set down and diligently described, by the foresaid Mr Ralph Fitch."
Hakluyt has prefaced this journal, by several letters respecting the
journey, from Mr Newbery, and one from Mr Fitch, and gives by way of
appendix an extract from Linschoten, detailing the imprisonment of the
adventurers at Ormus and Goa, and their escape, which happened while he
was at Goa, where he seems to have materially contributed to their
enlargement from prison. These documents will be found in the sequel to
the narrative of Mr Fitch.
It must not however be concealed, that the present journal has a very
questionable appearance in regard to its entire authenticity, as it has
obviously borrowed liberally from that of Cesar Frederick, already
inserted in this work, Vol. VII. p. 142-244. It seems therefore highly
probable, that the journal or narrative of Fitch may have fallen into
the hand of some ingenious _book-maker_, who wished to increase its
interest by this unjustifiable art. Under these circumstances, we would
have been led to reject this article from our collection, were not its
general authenticity corroborated by these other documents, and by the
journal of John Eldred, who accompanied Newbery and Fitch to Basora. A
part of the striking coincidence between the journals of Cesar Frederick
and Ralph Fitch might have arisen from their having visited the same
places, and nearly by the same route, only at the distance of 20 years;
Frederick having commenced his journey in 1563, and Newbery and Fitch
theirs in 1588. Some of the resemblances however could only have been
occasioned by plagiarism.
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