James Lancaster

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tagsperson, english, navigator, precolonial, atjeh, netherlands-east-indies, 17th-century, eic, trade, diplomacy
aliasesSir James Lancaster, James Lancaster I, Lancaster (English admiral), Lancaster (English navigator)

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Sir James Lancaster (c. 1554–1618) was an English navigator and commander who, as admiral of the English East India Company’s first voyage with four ships, anchored off Atjeh on 5 June 1602 and conducted the first English East India Company visit to Atjeh. He was received with ceremonial honours by the Sultan of Atjeh Aloeddin, praised Queen Elizabeth as “a princesse of great noblenesse, for fame speaketh so much of her”, and on 3 October 1602 went on — in cooperation with the Dutch fleet under Joris Spilbergh — to capture the annual Portuguese kraak (carrack) from the Koromandel coast in the first major Anglo-Dutch joint naval operation in the East Indies. Lancaster is the principal English figure of the early Atjeh chapter, and his visit marks the formal entry of the English East India Company into the Atjeh pepper trade.

Background and earlier voyages

Lancaster had already made one voyage to the East Indies, on behalf of the Levant Company merchants, in 1591–1594 — the first English voyage to the East Indies, in which he had lost two of his three ships but had reached Penang and the Strait of Malaka. His experience of the Portuguese trade and his reputation as a navigator made him the natural choice to command the first English East India Company fleet, outfitted after the Company’s charter of 31 December 1600. The fleet of four ships — Hector, Susan, Ascension and Red Dragon (Lancaster’s flagship) — left Woolwich on 13 February 1601 and reached the Cape in April. From there Lancaster sailed to the Nicobaren and on to Atjeh, arriving on 5 June 1602.

The Atjeh visit of June 1602

The full account of Lancaster’s Atjeh visit is given in the entry on the visit itself. In summary: he was received with great ceremony by the Sultan, praised Queen Elizabeth, exchanged gifts transported by caparisoned elephants, and obtained leave to trade; he found the pepper prices higher than expected and his capital insufficient for a full cargo; he conceived the plan of intercepting the annual Portuguese kraak from the Koromandel coast. Lancaster’s account of the visit, preserved in the Hakluyt Society edition by Clements R. Markham, is the principal English source for the early Atjeh chapter. His description of the Sultan’s reception — the elephants, the banquet, the dances, the praise of Queen Elizabeth — became a stock passage of early English East India Company literature.

The Dutch encounter and the hire of the Lam

When Joris van Spilbergen reached Atjeh later in 1602, he found the Lam — a yacht from his own fleet that had strayed — already lying there, hired by the English Company under Lancaster, with the famous English pilot John Davis under Lancaster’s command. The hire of a Dutch ship by the English Company at Atjeh is a striking instance of the practical cooperation — and competition — that characterised the early Dutch-English encounter in the Archipelago. Lancaster’s choice of Atjeh as his principal port of call was strategic: the sultanate was the dominant pepper-power of northern Sumatra, and the Sultan was at that moment seeking to balance the Dutch, the English and the Portuguese against each other.

The joint Anglo-Dutch capture of the Portuguese kraak, 3 October 1602

In cooperation with the English, Spilbergh took a richly-laden Portuguese kraak (merchantman). After unloading the goods, the kraak was returned to the Portuguese “met hun vrouwen en kinderen” (with their wives and children) to sail to Malakka. This act of clemency — keeping the cargo, returning the people — was a deliberate signal of Dutch-English good faith in Atjeh waters, and a practical way of disposing of prisoners without becoming responsible for them. The joint operation of 3 October 1602 is the first major Anglo-Dutch joint naval operation in the East Indies.

The arrival of the first VOC fleet at Atjeh

At Atjeh the first VOC fleet arrived during Lancaster’s and Spilbergh’s stay — sent out by the newly-founded Company (charter of 20 March 1602). Spilbergh sold one of his ships to the new foundation and reached the fatherland with his well-laden ship. Lancaster, having dispatched the Ascension under Christophor Colthurst to the Banda islands to load spices, sent the Susan home with her cargo, and returned himself to England with the Red Dragon and the Hector in 1603. The voyage returned a substantial profit to the Company and established the English East India Company’s commercial position in the East Indies. Lancaster was knighted by King James I on his return.

Significance

James Lancaster is the principal English figure of the early Atjeh chapter and the principal instance of the early phase of Anglo-Dutch commercial co-operation against the Portuguese in the East Indies. The visit of 1602 and the capture of the Portuguese *kraak* on 3 October 1602 are the high-water mark of the brief moment in which the English and Dutch companies co-operated against the Portuguese in the East Indies, before the rivalry between the VOC and the EIC hardened into the conflicts of the 1610s and the Ambonese murder of 1623. Lancaster’s ceremonial reception at Atjeh — the elephants, the banquet, the praise of Queen Elizabeth — also marks the beginning of English diplomacy at the Achehnese court, which would continue through the Captain Canning mission of 1814 and the Raffles-Coombs commission of 1819 down to the Atjeh-oorlog of 1873-1903.

The hire of the Dutch Lam by the English at Atjeh, and the joint taking of the Portuguese kraak, are also the visible traces of how the Atjeh trade was actually conducted in the early 1600s: not by national monopolies but by opportunistic partnerships between Europeans far from home. Godee Molsbergen’s framing of the episode places Lancaster’s visit at the hinge between the pre-VOC “wilde vaart” and the chartered Company’s monopoly — Lancaster, Spilbergh, and the first VOC fleet were all at Atjeh in the same year, and the Sultan had three European powers to play off against each other and against the Portuguese.

See Also

Sources

Coen, Koopman van Heeren Zeventien. Geschiedenis van den Hollandshen Handel in Indië (1598-1614), by Johan van der Woude (Amsterdam: C.V. Uitgeverij v/h C. De Boer Jr., 1948), Hoofdstuk V “Voorgangers, Hollanders en mededingers tot 1614. Atjeh. Djohor. Malaka.” (pp. 117-118).

The Voyage of Sir James Lancaster, Kt, to the East Indies, ed. Clements R. Markham, Hakluyt Society (London, 1877).

Tijdens de O.I. Compagnie, by Dr. E. C. Godee Molsbergen, Oud-Hoogleeraar, Landsarchivaris te Batavia (Amsterdam: N.V. Swets & Zeitlinger Boekhandel en Uitgevers Mij., 1932), chapter XXXIV (“Spilbergh’s succes op Ceylon. Nederlandsch panopticum. Het dankbare vaderland”), pp. 121–125 of the numbered-letter sequence.

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