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Columbus felt certain that by sailing to India by the much safer and shorter western route, the Spaniards might enter into profitable competition with the Portuguese traders. He constantly maintained, believing as he did that he had been alongside the Asiatic territory, that the islands and continents discovered by him were only separated by a strait from the Moluccas.
This place is the market of all India, of China, of the Moluccas, and of other islands around about from all which places, as well as from Banda, Java, Sumatra, Siam, Pegu, Bengal, Coromandel, and India arrive ships which come and go incessantly, charged with an infinity of merchandises.
Cortes, not yet resolved on submitting to the authority of Mendoça, fitted out two ships, under the command of Ferdinando de Grijalva and one Alvarado, on purpose to discover the route to the Moluccas by the way of the equinoctial line, because the islands of Cloves are under that parallel.
A small pinnace of this squadron, commanded by Juan de Resaga, passed the straits of Magellan, and ran along the whole coast of Peru and New Spain, carrying the intelligence to Cortes of the expedition of Loaisa to the Moluccas: But the admiral ship only of this squadron, commanded by Martin Mingues de Carchova, arrived at its destination, where the Moors of the Moluccas received the Spaniards hospitably; Loaisa and all the other captains died by the way.
On the 8th he took the vessel up the river to Seville. The eighteen survivors of the crew of sixty who sailed from the Moluccas, landing, walked barefooted in their shirts, carrying tapers in their hands, to offer thanks for their safe return.
Here, they live chiefly on sago as bread, with a little rice occasionally, and abundance of vegetables and fruit. It is a curious fact that everywhere in the Past where the Portuguese have mixed with the native races they leave become darker in colour than either of the parent stocks. This is the case almost always with these "Orang Sirani" in the Moluccas, and with the Portuguese of Malacca.
Be it as it may, the Tropical Belt Coal Company was born very shortly after Morrison, the victim of gratitude and his native climate, had gone to join his forefathers in a Dorsetshire churchyard. Heyst was immensely shocked. He got the news in the Moluccas through the Tesmans, and then disappeared for a time.
The insects of the Moluccas are pre-eminently beautiful, even when compared with the varied and beautiful productions of other parts of the Archipelago. There is, perhaps, no island in the world so small as Amboyna where so many grand insects are to be found.
The competition between England and Holland for sea supremacy was at this time very keen, and the ships of both nations sometimes carried a broom at the masthead to signify the sweeping of the ocean. We found, however, no English or other vessels to dispute with us our landing at the Moluccas, where the King received us with some ceremony.
From the Moluccas easy access was found to China, and ultimately to Japan, so that the Portuguese for a time held in their hands the whole of the Eastern trade, on which Europe depended for most of its luxuries. As we shall see, the Portuguese only won by a neck if we may use a sporting expression in the race for the possession of the Spice Islands.
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