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 detained for some time. Not long after he obtained his release his ship was wrecked on the coast of Western India. As a final touch to the disasters of the voyage the other large ship of his fleet, the Union, which had embarked a cargo of spice at Acheen and Priaman, was wrecked on the coast of Brittany on the way home. Better fortune attended the last of the three voyages with which we are now dealing—the fifth of the series—which was conducted by David Middleton in 1609–11. Proceeding to the Moluccas and Banda Middleton did a brisk trade, in spite of the open hostility of the Dutch, and the goods, with an additional lading, he obtained at Bantam constituted a very rich cargo which, when landed safely in England in the late summer of 1611, produced a return which went far to compensate for the loss on Sharpeigh's unfortunate voyage.

The year 1609 was in several ways an important one for the Company. Its chief interest lies in the circumstance that it witnessed the abandonment of the system of separate investments for each voyage in favour of a common stock, simultaneously with the renewal of the Company's charter for fifteen years with all its privileges of exclusive trading, subject to a proviso that in the event of the trade not proving profitable to the realm the monopoly might be withdrawn on three years' notice being given. To inaugurate the new era the Company had built the largest ship which up to that time had ever left the stocks in England. With its 1,100 tons burden, it was in the eyes of the people of that age a veritable leviathan, and for very many years after it represented the maximum size of trading ships. In fact right down to the era of steam the East Indiamen rarely exceeded that tonnage. The