________________
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[ JANUARY 1924
and Portuguese on the other, restrictions were speedily imposed. In 1623 the English Factory at Nagasaki was closed, and trade between England and Japan was not really renewed until the nineteenth century (Logan's Journal, V, 659-664; see para. 268 below). Saris tells us" (Kerr, XI, 41) of various duels fought ashore by members of his crew, which shows that the crews of these nominally trading vessels claimed and exercised the right of private combat enjoyed by the seamen of Buccaneer ships and (?) privateers. Low (I, 12) says that it was the opposition of the Portuguese and Spaniards which justified the armed character of such fleets as that sent out under Captain Best in 1612, and it is certain that this opposition accounts for a good deal, but what Captain Saris tells us shows that the crews were much more independent than those of the King's ships, and even than those of ordinary merchantmen. I am inclined to think that this fact may supply some explanation of the striped red and white flag of the English East India Company, its ships being equally ready to trade under the white flag or fight under the red.
217. On the 26th April 1613 the Venetian Ambassador at Constantinople wrote to the Doge :-"A Cha'ush has arrived from Cairo sent express from the Pasha to report the great damage inflicted by English and Dutch Bortons [i.e., British or large ships as distinguished from the galleys used by the Moors in the Mediterranean] in the Red Sea. Their constant plundering of rich Turkish ships is threatening the great city of Cairo with ruin to its trade" (Cal. State Papers, Venetian). This is evidently the Turkish version of what Sir Henry Middletori and his like considered were well-warranted reprisals.
218. In 1612 a certain Edward Christian was at Swally. In 1613 he was appointed Captain of the Hoseander by Captain Best and in 1615 of the Globe (Kerr, IX, 106-112, VIII, 463). This is probably the Captain Christian, Governor of the Isle of Man, whose summary punishment for favouring piracy was demanded by the Lord Deputy of Ireland on the 31st November 1633 (Cal. State Papers, Irish). The Earl of Derby having been asked why he had appointed such a man as Governor, replied :-"Captain Christian. .. was a Manx man born and had made himself a good fortune in the East Indies. He was an excellent companion and as rude as a sea-captain should be, but something more refined and civilized by serving the Duke of Buckingham about a year at Court. Most men have one failing or other to sully their best actions, and his was that condition which is ever found with drunkenness, viz., avarice, which is observed to grow in men with their years (Seacome, pp. 220-1).
219. When Captain Walter Peyton sailed for India (1615, Purchas, I, 528), he took out with him nineteen "condemned persons from Newgate to be left for the discovery of unknown places, the Company having obtained their pardons from the King for this purpose (Kerr, IX, 220; see para. 62 above).
220. In 1615 the St. Malo Company gave the command of a fleet for the East Indies to an Englishman, John Fearne, who unknown (?) to them was a pirate. He brought in some other Englishmen, Arthur Ingham, Lionel Cranfield and Eustace Mawe, but was acting in collusion with Ambassador Edmonds. When the fleet put to sea on the 26th March, he insisted, under pretence of necessary repairs, on taking his ship, the Cerf Volant, to England. On the way he captured a French ship-of-war (? Privateer or Pirate) and carried her to Milford. The Cerf Volant he took to London, where he sold her guns, and himself enlisted in Raleigh's expedition to Guiana (La Roncière, IV, 290). Faria says (III, 253) that in 1616 Don Hierome Manuel, who commanded the homeward bound vessels,
