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Reviews of Nathaniel's Nutmeg : True and Incredible Adventures of the Spice Trader Who Changed the Course of History by Giles Milton
Amazon.com
Would you believe that nutmeg formed the basis of one of the most bitter
international conflicts of the 17th century, and was also intimately
connected to New York City's rise to global preeminence? Strange but
true: nutmeg was, in fact, one of the most prized commodities in
Renaissance Europe, and its fascinating story is told in Giles Milton's
delightful Nathaniel's Nutmeg.
The book deals with the competition between England and Holland for
possession of the spice-producing islands of Southeast Asia throughout
the 17th century. Packed with stories of heroism, ambition, ruthlessness,
treachery, murder, torture, and madness, Nathaniel's Nutmeg offers a
compelling story of European rivalry in the tropics, thousands of miles
from home, and the mutual incomprehensibility which often comically
characterized relations between the Europeans and the local inhabitants
of the prized islands.
At the center of the action lies Nathaniel Courthope, a trusty lieutenant
of
the East India Company, who took and held the tiny nutmeg-producing
island of Run in the face of overwhelming Dutch opposition for more than
five years, before being treacherously murdered in 1620. To avenge his
death, and the loss of the island, the British took the Dutch North
American colony at Manhattan. (As Milton wittily remarks, although
Courthope's death "robbed England of her nutmeg, it gave her the biggest
of apples").
Inevitably inviting comparisons with Dava Sobel's Longitude,
Nathaniel's Nutmeg is a charming story that throws light on a neglected
period of European history, and analyzes its fascination with the "spicy"
East. --Jerry Brotton, Amazon.co.uk
From Kirkus Reviews , March 19, 1999
Milton (The Riddle and the Knight, not reviewed) deftly and arrestingly
captures the sorry history of the European lust for nutmeg and its
devastating impact on the Spice Islands. Spices from the Orient were
already costly curiosities when 16th-century European pharmacists
bestowed upon nutmeg a truly marvelous property: It could cure the
plague, they said (and dysentery and sexual torpor and a host of other
ailments). As most European cities were disease-ridden pest holes at the
time, the value of the rare spice took off like a prairie fire. So started
the
Spice Wars, a series of squalid, brutal engagements between the English,
Dutch, and Portuguese, played out on the small Pacific islands now
known as the Moluccas, and recounted here by Milton with beguiling
fluidity. Milton traces European involvement with the Spice Islands from
the time they were merely an exquisite rumor peddled by spice traders
from Constantinople through to the surrender of New Amsterdam to the
English in return for the latters quitting the tiny nutmeg island of Run,
said
island defended by the eponymous Nathaniel Courthope, who with a
handful of stalwarts, repelled much larger forces of invasion. Along the
way, Milton unfurls more treachery and deceit, acts of political subterfuge
and chicanery, displays of cruelty and mortification (along with an
occasional show of courage and decency, though ``the voice of
conscience is never loud in 16th-century mariners, notes the author) than
you could squeeze into a pulp thriller. Its a classic portrait of colonial
barbarity that results in the eradication of an entire native population
and
then ends in a whimper: The British transplanted the trees to colonial
Bencoolen and Singapore and Ceylon, and, oh yes, nutmeg didn't cure
the plague either. Milton is a storyteller of the first rank, with a knack
for
quick character sketches, an eye for what is important and what is dross,
and a refreshing sense of humor, even amid the smoke and ruin he so well
describes. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights
reserved.
Christopher Hudson, The Standard
"A little nutmeg of a book, spicily packaged and guaranteed to provide
savoury reading."
Nicholas Fearn, The Independent on Sunday
"A magnificent piece of popular history. It is an English story, but its
heroism is universal. This is a book to read reread, then read again ..."
Martin Booth, The Sunday Times
"Astonishing ... Milton has created a truly gripping tale of jingoistic
pride,
atrocious cruelty, avarice and double-dealing. His research is impeccable
and his narrative reads in part like a modern-day Robert Louis Stevenson
novel."
Philip Hensher, The Spectator
"An irresistible, constantly entertaining book ... Complex and fascinating,
full of alarmingly bloodthirsty incidents and dramatic reversals."
Book Description of Nathaniel's Nutmeg : True and Incredible
Adventures of the Spice
Trader Who Changed the Course of History by Giles Milton
A true tale of high adventure in the South Seas.
The tiny island of Run is an insignificant speck in the Indonesian
archipelago. Just two miles long and half a mile wide, it is remote,
tranquil, and, these days, largely ignored.
Yet 370 years ago, Run's harvest of nutmeg (a pound of which yielded a
3,200 percent profit by the time it arrived in England) turned it into
the
most lucrative of the Spice Islands, precipitating a battle between the
all-powerful Dutch East India Company and the British Crown. The
outcome of the fighting was one of the most spectacular deals in history:
Britain ceded Run to Holland but in return was given Manhattan. This led
not only to the birth of New York but also to the beginning of the British
Empire.
Such a deal was due to the persistence of one man. Nathaniel Courthope
and his small band of adventurers were sent to Run in October 1616, and
for four years held off the massive Dutch navy. Nathaniel's Nutmeg
centers on the remarkable showdown between Courthope and the Dutch
Governor General Jan Coen, and the brutal fate of the mariners racing to
Run-and the other corners of the globe-to reap the huge profits of the
spice trade. Written with the flair of a historical sea novel but based
on
rigorous research, Nathaniel's Nutmeg is a brilliant adventure story by
a
writer who has been hailed as the "new Bruce Chatwin" (Mail on
Sunday).
Synopsis of Nathaniel's Nutmeg : True and Incredible Adventures
of the Spice Trader Who
Changed the Course of History by Giles Milton
In 1616, Nathaniel Courthope was dispatched to Run, the most lucrative
of the Spice Islands to hold off the massive Dutch Navy. But after a
four-year siege, Britain ceded the island and its lucrative spice trade
to
Holland--in exchange for Manhattan.
From the Inside Flap of Nathaniel's Nutmeg : True and
Incredible Adventures of the Spice
Trader Who Changed the Course of History by Giles Milton
The tiny island of Run is an insignificant speck in the middle of the
Indonesian archipelago. Just two miles long and half a mile wide, it is
remote, tranquil, and these days largely ignored.
Yet, 370 years ago, Run's harvest of nutmeg (a pound of which yielded a
3200% profit by the time it arrived in England) turned it into the most
lucrative of the Spice Islands, precipitating a battle between the
all-powerful Dutch East India Company and the British crown. The
outcome of the fighting was one of the most spectacular deals in history:
Britain ceded Run to Holland but in return was given Manhattan. This led
not only to the birth of New York but to the beginning of the British
Empire.
Such a deal was due, in part, to the persistence of one man. Nathaniel
Courthope and his small band of adventurers were sent to Run in
October 1616 and for four years held off the massive Dutch Navy.
Nathaniel's Nutmeg centers on the remarkable showdown between
Courthope and the Dutch Governor General, Jan Coen, and the brutal
fate of the mariners racing to Run--and the other corners of the globe--to
reap the huge profits of the spice trade.
A brilliant adventure story of unthinkable hardship, savagery, the
navigation of uncharted waters, and the exploitation of new worlds,
Nathaniel's Nutmeg is a remarkable chapter in the history of the colonial
powers by a writer who has been hailed as "the new Bruce Chatwin"
(Mail on Sunday).
About the Author of Nathaniel's Nutmeg : True and Incredible
Adventures of the Spice
Trader Who Changed the Course of History, Giles Milton
Giles Milton is the author of The Riddle and the Knight, a critically
acclaimed history of the explorer Sir John Mandeville. He lives in
London.
Excerpted from Nathaniel's Nutmeg : True and Incredible
Adventures of the Spice Trader Who Changed the Course of
History by Giles Milton. Copyright © 1999. Reprinted by
permission. All rights reserved
Chapter One: Arctic Whirlwinds
It was the look-out who saw them first. Two crippled vessels, rotting and
abandoned, lay at anchor close to the shoreline. Their hulls were
splintered and twisted, their sails in tatters and their crew apparently
long
since dead. But it was not a tropical reef that had wrecked the ships and
nor was it malaria that had killed the crew. England's maiden expedition
to the Spice Islands had come to grief in the ice-bound waters of the
Arctic.
The historic 1553 voyage was the brainchild of a newly founded
organisation known as the Mystery, Company and Fellowship of
Merchant Adventurers for the Discovery of Unknown Lands. So
impatient were these merchants to enter the spice race -- yet so
unprepared for the risks and dangers -- that they allowed enthusiasm to
overrule practicalities and long before the ships had left port a catalogue
of errors threatened to jeopardise their mission. The choice of expedition
leader, or 'pilot-general', was sensible enough. Richard Chancellor was
'a
man of great estimation' who had gained some experience of seafaring in
his formative years. His adoptive father, Henry Sidney, so eulogised his
young charge when presented to the Company that the merchant
adventurers thought they had a new Magellan in their midst. Sidney
explained that it was Chancellor's 'good parts of wit' that made him so
invaluable and, never shy to blow his own trumpet, added, 'I rejoice in
myself that I have nourished and maintained that wit.'
When a doubting merchant tackled Sidney on his enthusiasm for being
separated from Chancellor the old man had a ready answer.'I do now
part with Chancellor not because I make little reckoning of the man, or
because his maintenance is burdenous and chargeable unto me. You
know the man by report, I by experience; you by words, I by deeds; you
by speech and company, but I by the daily trial of his life.'
Sidney's rhetoric won the day and Chancellor was promptly given
command of the Edward Bonaventure, the largest of the expedition's
three ships. The governors then turned to choosing a captain for the
expedition's other large ship, the Bona Esperanza. For reasons that
remain obscure they plumped for Sir Hugh Willoughby, a 'goodly
personage' according to the records, but one who had absolutely no
knowledge of navigation. Such a man would have been a risk for the
short hop across the English Channel; to despatch him to the uttermost
ends of the earth was to court disaster.
When it came to deciding the passage to the Spice Islands the merchant
adventurers were most insistent. Although they had watched the Spanish
and Portuguese successfully sail both east and west to the East Indies,
they plumped for an altogether more eccentric option. Their ships, it was
decided, would head due north; a route that would shave more than two
thousand miles off the long voyage to the Spice Islands. It would have
the
added benefit of avoiding conflict with the Portuguese who had been
sailing the eastern route for almost a century and had established fortified
bastions in every port. There was also the question of illness and climate
to consider. English mariners had seen the Portuguese ships return home
with their crews decimated by dysentery and typhoid, often contracted in
the tropical climes of the Indian Ocean. At least one man in five could
expect death on the long voyage to the East but that number was
frequently much higher and often entire ships had to be abandoned due to
a shortage of crew. Since the Portuguese were acclimatised by birth to
a
hot climate men questioned how English sailors, brought up on the frosty
fringes of northern Europe, could hope to return in rude health.
The expedition ran into trouble before it even set sail. During delays
at
Harwich, it was discovered that a large part of the provisions was already
rotten, while the wine casks had been so badly assembled that the wine
was leaking freely though the joints in the wood. But with the wind in
their
favour the captains decided there was no time to restock the ships and
the expedition set sail on 23 June 1553.
So long as the vessels stuck together under the capable direction of
Richard Chancellor they were unlikely to run into trouble. But as they
rounded the rocky shores of northern Norway, 'there came such flows of
winde and terrible whirlewinds' that Willoughby's ship was blown off
course. Chancellor had planned for such an eventuality, suggesting that
the ships regroup at Vardohuus, a small island in the Barents Sea. He
waited for seven days but, hearing nothing of either the Bona Esperanza
or the Confidentia, the third ship of the fleet, he pushed on eastwards
towards the White Sea.
The other two vessels had also survived the storm. After riding out the
gale, Sir Hugh re-established contact with the Confidentia and both
headed towards the coastline. Here Willoughby's inexperience began to
tell. He sounded the sea floor, pored over charts and scratched his head
before concluding that 'the land lay not as the globe made mention.'
Failing to locate Vardohuus's or Chancellor's vessel, he decided to press
on with the expedition without the flagship.
On 14 August 1553, he 'descried land', apparently uninhabited, at 72
degrees latitude but failed to reach it due to the quantity of ice in the
water. If this reading is correct, his ship must have reached the barren
islands of Novaya Zemlya which lie, remote and isolated, in the Barents
Sea. From here he appears to have sailed south-east, then north-west,
then south-west, then north-east. The ignorance of Willoughby and his
men is staggering, for their course, more than three hundred miles inside
the Arctic Circle, must have taken them in a giant arc through a
dangerous sea littered with melting pack-ice. On 14 September, they
again sighted land and shortly afterwards 'sailed into a faire bay'
somewhere close to the present border between Finland and
Russia.Willoughby's men were cheered by the sight of 'very many seal
fishes, and other great fishes; and upon the main we saw beares, great
deere, foxes with divers strange beasts'. They planned at first to spend
a
week here but 'seeing the yeare far spent, and also very evill weather,
as
frost, snow, and haile', they decided to winter in the bay.
The expedition's directors in London must by now have hoped that their
ships had found the North-East Passage, broken through it, and be well
on their way to the Spice Islands. But instead of balmy evenings and
gently swaying palm trees,Willoughby and his men had met with freezing
fog, impenetrable ice, and the realisation that London's merchants had
made a terrible mistake when they chose the route over the North Pole.
Those merchants had vociferously defended their decision, presenting
logical and compelling arguments to support their theories. As far back
as
the year 1527, Robert Thorne, an English trader living in Seville, had
written to King Henry VIII with the exciting (and highly secret) news that
the Spice Islands could be reached by way of the North Pole: 'I know it
is my bounden duty to manifest this secret unto your Grace,' he wrote,
'which hitherto, as I suppose, hath beene hid.' The King was left in no
doubt that 'by sailing northward and passing the Pole, descending to the
Equinoctial line, we shall hit these islands [the Spice Islands], and it
should be a much shorter way than either the Spaniards or Portugals
have.'
The more the experts researched the north-eastern route to the Spice
islands the more plausible it proved to be. In an age when men still
looked for perfect symmetry on their maps, the northern cape of Norway
showed an exact topographical correspondence to the southern cape of
Africa.
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