Page:Early English adventurers in the East (1917).djvu/118

 The Traders Increase, of which such great expectations had been entertained, whilst careened at Bantam, was set on fire by a renegade Spaniard, who appears to have had some grudge against the Company. What was left of her was sold for 1,050 reals.

Overwhelmed by the destruction of all his hopes, and enfeebled by his hardships, Middleton died at Bantam on May 24, 1613. He was a brave soul, who deserved better things than this obscure end in an unfriendly land. His voyage was an uninterrupted series of misfortunes and difficulties, and of personal hardships of an uncommon kind. Yet who shall say that he suffered in vain? Sir Dudley Digges, nearly three centuries ago, described him as "the thrice worthy general who laid the true foundation of our long-desired Cambaya trade." It was not an exaggerated tribute paid by a contemporary in the fulness of a generous sympathy, but the settled conviction of a discriminating judge, and its justice has been completely vindicated by time. The more we know of the period in which Middleton filled the stage of adventure in the East, the greater is the figure he and his fine old colleague, the rugged Downton, present upon it. His courageous assertion of the rights of Englishmen trampled under foot by a mean and despicable tool of a leading Oriental power won respect for the English name not only in the immediate scene of his operations, but in a wide sphere outside, to which the news in due course penetrated. But the qualities which most fired the Oriental imagination and produced the greatest moral effect were the justice and moderation he showed when the fortunes of war had placed him in a position to be cruel and exacting. His uniformly generous treatment of the Indian ships which he captured or