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56 on the spot rather than for him to exercise a restraining influence by withholding his prerogative when new aspirants appeared in the field. It must have been somewhat in this spirit that he selected the time when the East India Company had just dispatched a second fleet to the East to issue a licence to Sir Edward Michelborne "to discover the countries of China and Japan and to trade with their people," The East India Company protested vigorously against this infringement of the spirit if not the letter of their patent, but all in vain, for they had to contend with adverse Court influences which were proof against any representations, however weighty, on the score of expediency or however well grounded in justice.

Michelbome's venture was the more formidable by reason of the fact that he had secured the co-operation of John Davis. This worthy returned home from Lancaster's expedition to a certain extent under a cloud. He was thought to have misled the Company, and though there was probably a reasonable explanation in Dutch activity of the failure of Acheen to answer the expectations which he held out in regard to it, he suffered the usual fate of the false prophet; he was discarded. In Michelbome's expedition he figured in his old role of a pilot, but it may be imagined that he was a good deal more than a simple sailing master. He was as expert in navigation as Michelborne was deficient in that science, and he had, moreover, an incomparable general knowledge, picked up during his extensive service at sea, which must have made his decision authoritative on most questions of discipline and policy. Regarded as an essay in commercial exploitation in a far distant and little known region the gentleman adventurer's expedition was of a decidedly unassuming character.