Nathaniel's nutmeg (6 page)

A year after leaving Tenerife, Magellan's ship nudged
through the straits that now bear his name and entered the
warm waters of the Pacific. 'He was so glad thereof,' records
his diarist, 'that for joy the teares fell from his eyes.'
Magellan had been right all along: it was now simply a
question of following the spice-filled breezes all the way to
the East Indies.

Unfortunately it was not so simple. Magellan, like most
explorers of his day, had no idea of the massive distances
involved and after more than three months at sea with no
sight of land his men began to starve. 'Having consumed all
their biskits and other victuals, they fell into such necessitie
that they were enforced to eate the powder that remained
thereof, being now full of wormes and stinking like pisse
by reason of the salt water. Their fresh water was also
putrified and became yellow.' Soon even the worm-ridden
powder ran out, forcing them 'to eate pieces of leather
which were folded about certain great ropes of the shippes;

but these skinnes being very hard, by reason of the sunne,
raine and winde, they hung them by a cord in the sea for
the space of four or five days to mollifie them'. It was no
diet for sick men and it soon took its toll: 'By reason of this
famine, and unclean feeding, some of their gummes grew
so over their teeth that they died miserably for hunger.'

Despite the terrible hardship, the ships limped on until
they reached the Philippines where the men learned that
they were nearing their goal. But Magellan was destined
not to see the Spice Islands for he made the mistake of
involving himself in a local power struggle and, during the
fighting, was struck down and killed. It was a devastating
blow to all those left alive and Pigafetta, shocked by the
news, struggled to express their loss. 'There perished our
guide, our light, and our support.'

So many men had died that a decision was taken to
abandon one of the ships. The remaining vessels then sailed
for the most northerly of the Spice Islands, sighting the
clove-covered cone of Tidore's volcano in the first week
of November 1521. Suddenly, the lurid descriptions that
characterise Pigafetta's journal acquire a more practical
tone. Magellan's men had sailed half-way around the world
to make money and, for the next few pages, Pigafetta
records every conceivable weight and measure in use on
the island.

Laden with twenty-six tons of cloves, a cargo of nutmeg,
and sackloads of cinnamon and mace, the expedition's
remaining two ships finally left the Spice Islands in the
winter of 1521. The
Trinidad
got no farther than the
harbour: rotten, leaking and hopelessly overloaded, she
needed extensive repairs before making the return journey.
With a tearful farewell, the crew of the
Victoria
set sail
alone. The men faced an appalling homeward journey and
more than half of them died of dysentery. Pigafetta, diligent
as ever, noted every sickness and death and even found
significance in the way the corpses floated. 'The corpses of
the Christians floated with the face towards heaven,' he
wrote,'but those of the Indians with the face downwards.'

Nine months after leaving the Spice Islands the
Victoria
at last reached Seville and, anchoring off the mole,
'discharged all her ordinance for joy'. Although her crew
were half dead and Magellan was long-since buried, King
Charles V was overjoyed and one of his first actions was to
honour the captain, Sebastian del Cano, with a coat of
arms. Its design included three nutmegs, two sticks of
cinnamon and twelve cloves.

Portugal's merchants were livid at losing their short-lived
monopoly and protested in the strongest terms to King
Charles. They argued that the Spice Islands belonged to
Portugal, not Spain, citing the infamous Treaty of
Tordesillas. But their case was not as straightforward as they
claimed. The Treaty of Tordesillas, signed some two decades
previously, was based on a papal bull which had divided the
world into two parts. Pope Alexander VI had drawn a line
down the middle of the Atlantic which stretched 'from Pole
Artike to the Pole Antartike' some hundred leagues west of
the Cape Verde Islands. Any land discovered west of this
line, declared the Pope, belonged to Spain. Everything east
of the line belonged to Portugal. By the time the treaty had
been signed, the Portuguese had successfully managed to
shift the line westwards by several hundred miles allowing
them to argue that Brazil, whose coastline was cut by the
line, rightly belonged to them.

The treaty was easy enough to uphold with discoveries
close to home but it was more complicated when dealing
with distant and little-known islands. When continued on
the far side of the world the Pontiff's line placed the Spice
Islands unquestionably within the Portuguese sphere, but
sixteenth-century maps were extremely inaccurate and the
Spanish argued that these islands fell into their half of the
globe and that their riches belonged to the king of Spain.

Unfortunately, no one could be sure who was right. In
1524, representatives from both sides submitted themselves
to a board of inquiry but although they examined countless
maps and charts no agreement was reached. It took a
further five years of squabbling before King Charles of
Spain sold his claims to the Spice Islands for the massive
sum of 350,000 gold ducats.

This deal would have solved the problem had it been
only the Spanish and Portuguese who were interested in
the Spice Islands. But other powers were beginning to turn
their attentions to the East: England, in particular, was
developing an attachment to the sweet smell of spice. It
could only be a matter of time before an English
adventurer would once again attempt the journey.

Although the failure of Sir Hugh Willoughby's Arctic
expedition brought to an abrupt end England's search for a
North-East Passage, it did little to dampen the enthusiasm
for sailing to the Spice Islands. Yet more than two decades
were to pass before London's merchants contemplated
financing a new expedition, and it was not until 1577
-
some twenty-four years after Willoughby's voyage - that a
flotilla of ships finally set sail under the command of Sir
Francis Drake.

Drake's expedition was backed by Queen Elizabeth I
and its ostensible object was to conclude trade treaties with
the people of the South Pacific and to explore an unknown
continent rumoured to exist in the southern hemisphere.
But the Queen also gave Drake full licence to plunder
Spanish ships and ports and to carry off as much treasure as
his vessel could hold for, she told him, 'I would gladly be
revenged on the King of Spain for divers injuries that I
have received.' Since it was imperative that none of this
information should fall into Spanish hands, the expedition
was shrouded in secrecy from the very outset and the crew
had no idea of their destination until the English coastline
had receded into the distance.

The five ships under Drake's command, none of which
exceeded the length of two London buses, used Magellan's
route as their blueprint and revictualled in many of the
same bays and harbours. These stops did not always go
according to plan: dropping anchor in Patagonia the crew
had fully expected to be entertained by giants vomiting
'green choler' and trussing up their genitals. Instead, they
walked straight into an ambush and were only saved by
swift intervention from Drake who picked up a musket,
fired at a native, and, 'tore out his bellie and guts with
greate torment, as it seemed by his crye, which was so
hideous and horrible a roare, as if ten bulls had joined
together in roaring'.

A few days later it was time to turn his fire on a fellow
Englishman. One of Drake's subordinates, a 'gentelman' by
the name of Thomas Doughty, was rumoured to be
threatening mutiny. These rumours eventually reached the
captain who promptly confronted Doughty with the
allegations. What happened next is difficult to determine
for Doughty had many enemies and each account tells a
different story. But all follow a similar line: that Doughty
admitted his guilt to an astonished Drake and was given
three choices — to be executed, set on land, or return to

England to answer the charges before a full council.
Doughty showed not a moments hesitation: 'He professed
that with all his heart he did embrace the first branch of the
general's proffer ... and without any dallying or delaying
the time he came forth and kneeled downe, preparing at
once his necke for the axe and his spirit for heaven.'

With this unpleasant episode over the ships continued
on their way, successfully crossing from the Atlantic into the
Pacific through the notoriously tempestuous straits. Drake's
smaller vessels had already been abandoned. Now, sailing
into a storm, he lost sight of the second ship in his fleet (it
had, in fact, headed back towards England) leaving his
flagship alone and in a perilous state. Tossed about 'like a
ball in a racket' Drake raced up the South American
coastline plundering wherever he could before steering his
vessel westwards in the direction of the Spice Islands, a
desolate journey for there was 'nothing in our view but aire
and sea [for] the space of full sixty-eight dayes together'. At
last — more than a generation after the Portuguese had first
sailed to the East Indies — the English vessel sighted the
luxuriant shores of the Spice Islands.

Drake had intended to drop anchor at the volcanic
island of Tidore but as he edged his ship through the
treacherous shallows a canoe drew alongside carrying a
viceroy from the neighbouring island of Ternate. Arguing
that Tidore was all but controlled by the hated Portuguese,
he begged the English commander to change his course.
Drake consented and, selecting a fine velvet cloak from his
cabin, asked that it might be presented to the King with the
message that he had come to buy spices. The messenger
promptly returned with the news that the King 'would
sequester the commodities and traffique of his whole island
[and] reserve it to the intercourse of our nation'.