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254
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
(SEPTEMBER, 1911,
place on July 5, 1642. A fortnight later she sailed for Masulipatam and thence to Balasore, in the Bay of Bengal, where she spent three months, returning to Madras in December. On the 30th of that month she departed for Gombroon in Persia, arrived there in March, and got back to Madras on May 19, 1643. There had been continual disputes between Day and Trumball, and charges of cruelty were brought against the latter by many of the officers and crew, with the result that the Agent and Council at Fort St. George ordered the master on shore and sent the ship down the coast to Tranquebar without him. On her return (August 1643) Trumball was reinstated; but this produced a fresh hubbub, and Day positively refused to venture on board again. At last a solution was found for the difficulty: Cogan himself took command of the vessel for the voyage to Bantam, while Day remained at Fort St. George as Agent in his place. The scanty records of the time include several documents relating to the charges against Trumball. One of these (0. C. Duplicates, No. 1824) contains the latter's answer, in June, 1643, to certain accusations made by Day (not now extant), which evidently alleged, among other things, that the master had used the surgeon of the Hopewell in a cruell horrid manner.' To this Trumball replied that:
"It is not zoe. But the above said chirurgion havinge caused my servant to enter 8 pound in the pursers books to him for curinge (as he said) the runninge of the reynes, I questioned with him why he would have any dealinge with him that was my servant and not let me know of it, and to cause him to enter any money, which he, beinge another mans servant, could not doe. I said moreover, if he [had] acquainted me with it, I would have made him satisfaction. His reply [was] now it was entred in the booke, he had satisfaction. Whereupon I demanded whose the medecines were that he did use. He tould me the Company did lay them in for his use. I tould him, if the Company did lay them in for his use, yet they did not permitt him to sell them at such high rates. He made me answere verie proudly he would make what rates he thought fitt, and that it did not belonge to me to examine him in those particulers. I fürther asked him why he caried the medecines ashore now wee had noe sicke men there. He replied I should never know; which mov'd me, seeinge his infinite pride, to strike him 3 or 4 blowes with an inch rope; which I thinke was, roe more then I might doe." Further on in the same document Trumball alludes to his having on another occasion "had" some words" with the surgeon, who had refused to come near him, though his foot was giving him "extreame paine." There is also a reference to some complaint that Trumball sent his sick men ashore at Balasore without seeing that they had proper shelter and food; in reply to which he protests that he left the matter in the hands of the "chirurgion," who "never asked any thinge of me; but (as afterward I knew) tooke care to gett his owne chest and lumber into the boate." In none of these instances, however, is the name of the surgeon given; and so, unless some further evidence is forthcoming, it must remain doubtful whether they really relate to Boughton or to some predecessor of his.
After this digression, we return to our examination of the narrative. The Hopewell sailed from Bantam for England in January, 1644, under the command of Captain Yates (not Gage); but she had not got far on her way when she was forced by bad weather and her leaky condition to put into the Island of Mauritius. There, as stated in the narrative, she met the Dolphin, which had left Surat at the beginning of the year and had likewise been badly damagel in a storm. After refitting as best they could, the two ships went on to Madagascar and the Comoros; but then, finding themselves in no condition to complete the voyage to Europe, they made their way to Surat, which was reached in September, 1644.
Thus far the narrative appears to be in the main correct, though it must be confessed that in the extant records no trace can be found of Boughton's participation in the voyage. At
