GOLCONDA^151headed for Lisbon.* She was bigger than any vessel the English had
ever seen: 165 feet long, 47 feet of beam, 1,600 tons, three times the
size of the biggest ship in England; seven decks, thirty-two guns plus
other arms, gilded superstructure; and her hold was filled with treasure.
Here was the stuff of dreams—chests bulging with jewels and pearls,
gold and silver coins, amber older than England, bolts of the finest
cloth, tapestries fit for a palace, 425 tons of pepper, 45 tons of cloves,
35 tons of cinnamon, 3 of mace, 3 of nutmeg, 2.5 tons of benjamin (a
highly aromatic balsamic resin used as base in perfumes and pharma
ceuticals), 25 tons of cochineal (a dyestuff made from the dried bod
ies of the female of an insect found in semitropical climes), 15 tons of
ebony. Even before the English squadron commander could take
charge of the prize, his rampaging crewmen had stuffed their pockets
with everything they could carry.
When the prize came into Dartmouth Harbor, it towered over the
other ships and the small houses at quayside. Traders, dealers, cut-
purses, and thieves came from miles around, from London and be
yond, like bees to honey—to visit the ship (the local fishermen plied
ceaselessly and expensively between vessel and shore) and seek out
drunken sailors in the taverns and dives, the better to buy, steal, pilfer,
and fence the loot. By English law, a large share of this catch was owed
to the queen; and when Elizabeth learned what was going on, she sent
Sir Walter Raleigh down there to get her money back and punish the
looters. "I mean to strip them as naked as ever they were born," swore
the valiant Sir Walter, "for Her Majesty has been robbed and that of the
most rare things."
By the time Sir Walter took things in hand, a cargo estimated at half
a million pounds—nearly half of all the monies in the Exchequer—had
been reduced to £140,000. Even so, it took ten freighters to carry the
treasure around the coast and up the Thames to London. Next to the
ransom of Atahualpa, it was perhaps the greatest haul in history. And
like the ransom of Atahualpa, it was an immensely potent appetizer.
This whiff of wealth, this foretaste of the riches of the East, galvanized
English interest in these distant lands and set the country (and the
world) on a new course.
* Because of the westerlies (winds are named for their source) and the easting Gulf
Stream, the Azores were in effect the gullet for vessels returning from the West and
East Indies alike. On their role in the American trade, see Landes, "Finding the Point
at Sea"; also Broad, "Watery Grave of the Azores."