The Voyage of Sir Henry Middleton to the Moluccas, 1604-1606

1943

Journals G161 H2 Ser. 2 no. 88

London: The Hakluyt Society

In 1601, Henry Middleton (d. 1613) sailed for South East Asia as a mercantile agent on the first funded voyage of the East India Company. Three years later, Middleton departed again for the region, also under the aegis of the Company and this time as “General’. Charged with procuring cloves and nutmeg, he left the island of Java and headed for the Moluccas in January 1605. En route, the General and his crew became embroiled in disputes between the island chiefdoms of Ternate and Tidore, and quarrels between the Dutch and Portuguese. This engraving (1724) of Ternate clearly shows a landscape dominated by the still active volcano, Mount Gamalama. Middleton sailed again for the Company in 1610; he died in the port town of Bantam in Java.