( 140 ) 
his kerchief to them as he sailed away " ; on page 
70, that Reeling " sailed away to Jaccatra, while 
the Dutch agents and factors stood menacingly on the 
Banda slwre shaking their fists " ; on page 82, that 
" the exultant Poituouese lined tlte shore hailing 
the English 'pirates ' with a chorus of derisive 
laicghter " ; aud ou page 142, that C'osn ''ground his 
heel [sic] and gave full vent to his wrath." In 
some cases Mr. Wiilson has been led, by careless 
reading of his authorities or by erroneous deduc- 
tions, to pen staten-ients thai/ are absurdities. For 
example, on page 11, he says that Lancaster's ships 
having (in 1593) reached the Malay peninsula, 
*' contrived, probably at a sacrfi.ce, to secure a cargo 
of pepper, closes and cinnamon " ; whereas in fact 
she obtained a cargo of pepper and cloths by stealing 
it from Portuguese ships which she waylaid ! The 
account of the fate of Wood's ships, which I have 
shown in my introduction to the Hakluyfc Society's 
edition of Teixeira's travels to be entirely erro- 
neous, is once more repeated (for the last time, I 
hope) by Mr, Willson on page 15. In his descrip- 
tion of Lancaster's second voyage in 1601-02, Mr. 
Willson again blunders over the pepper cargo. He 
tells us of Lancaster's sailing out from Achin on 
the chance of meeting a Spanish or Portuguese 
vessel, of his sighting a Portuguese ship bound 
from Sao Thome, which he attacked and boarded, 
' and haled triumphantly forth the cloves and 
pepper from her bulging hold.'* Now, had Mr. 
Willson read the narrative of Lancaster's voyage 
with ordinary care, and, better still, if he had in 
addition consulted the journal of Spilbergen's 
voyage, he would have found that the coming of 
the Portuguese ship from Sao Thom6 was known 
to the English and Dutch captains at Achin, wlio 
agreed to make a combined attack upon hei-, which 
they did (six to one !) ; and that after her capture 
they divided her cargo of cloths, arms, rice, 
anise, etc. — not " cloves and pepper " which do not 
grow on the Coromandel Coast I 
In his references to Ceylon Mr. Willson has more 
than once fallen into error. On page 244 of the 
first volume he states that " Van Dieman [sic], the 
Dutch Governor- General of Batavia, at this time 
[1643] attempted to come to a pacific arrangement 
with the Portuguese at Goa, the basis of which 
was the cession by the latter of the Island of 
Ceylon. But as the Dutch had recently been 
defeated there, the Viceroy very properly rejected 
these overtures to a treaty." Of course, Van 
Dieman never made such a monstrous demand ; it 
was simply the lands around Gall§ that formed the 
-bone of contention. Mr. Willson is rather more 
accurate when he goes on to say : " Van Dieman 
Isic], however, persisted, aud the following year 
(1644) a treaty was concluded, by which the prizes 
taken by either were to be given up and half of 
the cinnamon ceded to the Dutch." On page 
320 we are told that (in 1672) Admiral de la Haye 
"succeeded in establishing his factors in Ceylon," 
— a version of the French occupation of Trinco- 
raalee Bay as remarkable for its inaccuracy as 
for its brevity, 
Mr Willson makes no reference to the 
underhand and deservedly unsuccessful em- 
bassy of Mr Pybus to the King of Kandy in 
1762 ; nor does he mention the still more un- 
fortunate mission of Hugh Boyd twenty years 
later, though he records the capture of Trinco- 
malee by the British, its recapture by the French, 
and the naval engameraents oil that port. 
I have noted other errorS) but none of them very 
serious. Of misprints there are creditably few. 
On page 379 of the first volume we read of "a 
fl.agriian carrying St George, hia colours s'.vallow- 
tailed in silk," Here the wrong insertion of a 
comma has altered the sense in a comical way. 
On page 215 of the same volume, by a most 
amusing blunder (it can hardly be a printer's 
error), John Cappua, the company's "r^niembran- 
cer," appeals as "copper remembrancer." 
These two volumes contain so much that is 
interesting, tliat it is difficult to make a selection 
for special reference. I may, however, for the 
benefit of Ceylon readers, quote the passages in 
which are recorded the 
RISE AND EXPANSION OF THE COMPANY'S 
TEA TRADE. 
From its very commencement the Company 
had attempted to open up communications with 
China, its captains being armed with letters 
from Queen Elizabeth to " the Emperors of 
China and Cathay " ; but all their attempts 
were unsucessful. When the fourth voyage 
was undertaken, in 1608, Captain Sharpeigh 
was given special orders to try and induce 
the Chinese who came to Bantam to bring silks to 
exchange for English cloths. On this Mr Willson 
comments that the merchant adventurers ha^ 
very erroneous ideas regarding tl>e Chinese ; and he 
adds: — "The Chinese trade was to expand, never- 
theless, but in a direction hardly anticipated by 
any merchant then driving hard bargains ou the 
Royal Exchange, The Company's servants re- 
ported to their masters faithfully the custom 
of the Chinese in partaking of an infu- 
sion of an aromatic plant called • tay,' but 
that the dried leaves of this plant would 
ever become a staple in Europe and the im- 
portation bring millions sterling to the Com- 
pany's coffers and to the revenue of England, 
was an idea which would have been laughed at 
as absurd." Through the intervention of William 
Adams, the Company succeeded in 1613 in inaugu- 
rating a direct trade with Japan ; but this lasted 
only ten years, and all their agents' endeavours 
to obtain a footing in China failed. At length, 
in 1664 the Company resolved, to make fresh 
attempts to open up a commerce with China aud 
Japan, and the project was taken up with 
ardour by their agent at Bantam, Quarles Browne, 
who, however, did not live to carry it Out. 
" Browne of Bantam," says Mr Willson, " first 
perceived a future for ' tea ' if it would once 
be made fashionable in Europe " ; and in a 
foot note he quotes the well known entry by Pepys 
in his Diary under the date 25 September 1660, 
recording how " I did send for a cup of tea (a 
China drink), of which I had never drank before." 
To this Mr Willson adds, on the authority of 
Sir George Birdwood, that " This Company in 
in 1664 purchased and presented 2 lb. of tea to 
the King, and 23f lb. in 1666. Its first 
received consignment was from Bantam three 
years later." The Anglo- Japanese commercial 
project fell through ; but " as for tea," says Mr 
Willson, " it grew gradually in European favour, 
but not till 1715 was a regular Anglo-Chinese 
trade established at Canton." Further on we 
read : — " We have already noted the appearance 
of a new Eastern product on the scene. In 1666 
a small parcel of tea arrived in England by a 
Company's ship and in the following year it<j 
agent at Saaiaui is ordered ' to send home by 
