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 time being allowed them to get in their debts. On 11 Feb. 1611–12 they sailed for Dabul, but neither there could any trade be done; and Middleton thought himself poorly recompensed by seizing a Portuguese ship of three hundred tons, and taking out of her what she had of ‘cloves, cinnamon, wax, and bales of raw China silk—but a mite in comparison to the loss inflicted on the venture by the Portuguese.’

From Dabul he went back to the Red Sea, blockaded Aden and the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb, and seized several Indian ships by way of reprisals; but learning that the company's fleet of the year (the eighth voyage), under the command of John Saris [q. v.], with whom was Gabriel Towerson [q. v.], had passed into the Red Sea, he went in and joined Saris at Assab. He then demanded from the Turks one hundred thousand pieces of eight as compensation for former injuries and insults, and would probably have forced them to pay but for an angry quarrel between him and Saris, partly about the division of the spoil, and still more, it would seem, about their precedence. Finally they accepted something like a third of their demand from the Indian ships; and so with much ill-feeling, and without ‘the usual courtesies,’ they separated in the beginning of August 1612, Middleton, with the Peppercorn in company, going to Tecoa, where he joined the Darling on 19 Oct. From Tecoa they went to Bantam, and Middleton proposed to send Downton home in the Trade's Increase with a cargo of pepper, while he himself, in the Peppercorn, should attempt another voyage to the Moluccas. It was found, however, that the Trade's Increase was in need of a very extensive refit; so in the beginning of February 1612–13, Downton sailed for England in the Peppercorn. After a few months the Trade's Increase, while being careened, fell over on her side, became a total wreck, and was maliciously set on fire by the Javanese (, i. 526, 533; Cal. State Papers, East Indies, 9 June 1614; 2 Jan. 1615). Most of the men died from their injuries, and with them Middleton himself, 24 May 1613 (, Worthies, i. 289).

It does not appear that Middleton was married; the entries in the Calendar of State Papers (East Indies) to the contrary effect are certainly erroneous, as is shown by his will (at Somerset House, Lawe, 55), dated on board the Trade's Increase 29 March 1610, and proved by Alice, wife of David Middleton, on 22 June 1614. By this, his brother David, and David's son Henry, are left executors and residuary legatees. Mention is made of his brother Christopher; of his three sisters, Katharine Tetlow, Margaret Burre, who has been erroneously named as his daughter (, p. viii;, p. v), and Ursula Fawcet; his niece and god-daughter, Joan Burre; his cousins, John Haylin, Margaret Radford, Jane Hill, and her sister Sarah Hanmer; ‘my sister, Alice Middleton’ (David's wife), and her daughter Elizabeth; ‘my sister, Margery Middleton’ (?Christopher's wife); also Sir Thomas Myddelton and his son Thomas, Hugh Myddelton, Captain William Myddelton, Captain Roger Middleton, and his brother William, and Robert Middleton. None of these last are described as relations; but in John's will (Bolein, 75), dated 5 March 1600–1, proved by Henry 27 Oct. 1603, Hugh Myddelton is styled cousin; the sisters, Margaret and Ursula, were then unmarried, and two other brothers, Jarrett and Randall, are named, as well as his father, John. David in his will (Meade, 31), mentions Robert Middleton also as a cousin. 

MIDDLETON, HUGH (1560?– 1631), projector of New River. [See .]

MIDDLETON, JANE (1645–1692), court beauty. [See .]

MIDDLETON, JOHN, first (1619–1674), was the eldest son of Robert Middleton of Caldhame, Kincardineshire, who was killed in his own house by Montrose's soldiers in 1645. His mother was a daughter of Alexander Strachan of Thornton in the same county. The family owned the lands of Middleton, Kincardineshire, from which they took their surname, before the time of William the Lion. The future earl began his career as a pikeman in