STUDY UNIT 6 - THE MERCHANT ADVENTURERS

You will have gathered that I don't have much admiration for the adventurousness of the Merchant Adventurers. It seems to me that there were tremendous opportunities available at that time for men with the means to sail the seas to indulge any spirit of adventure they might have. Whole new Continents were being discovered and opened up fabulous wealth was available to those who were ready to take risks in the vast stretches of oceans which were being discovered (and being found to lead not to the edge of the world or to hell ).

Try to imagine how it must have appeared to a man of the sixteenth century. Suddenly the world expanded, more than doubled in size. New wonders were reported in London, and talked about in the taverns. Slaves were shown off around London as though they were strange creatures. The conquests of the Spaniards and Portuguese were discussed with envy, and probably half disbelief. Unimaginable hoards of gold and jewels were dragged from the ancient civilizations of South and Central America. Great things were happening and being done. And the Merchant Adventurers, who had money, ships, tradable commodities, ploughed solemnly to and fro across the Channel on the London-Antwerp milk-run.

Perhaps this is a little unfair. After all they were onto a good thing. Guaranteed profits of 15-25% were not to be passed up for dangerous risks. But it does seem that their greed for those easy profits outweighed any sense of adventure they might have had. At the beginning of the century a Venetian wrote of those English merchants that they were so greedy for the profits they made in Antwerp, that even if their fathers were hanged at Antwerp gate they would crawl between their legs to get to the town's markets.

It was the west country sailors who showed real imagination and adventure. The Hawkins family ( William the father, John the more famous son, and Richard the grandson), Drake, and perhaps the most creative, gallant and truly adventurous of them all, Walter Raleigh, laid the foundations for England's great sea-faring tradition. The actual exploits of these men read like a tremendous adventure story. You should be able to find plenty of material on Hawkins' and Drake's voyages and fights along the Spanish Main. Try to find also That Great Lucifer by Margaret Irwin. It is an imaginative account of Raleigh's life and adventures. Raleigh seems to me to be one of the most attractive figures in England's history.

There was adventure in plenty to be had on the sea in earlier times. Once on board and under sail there were no bureaucratic authorities to bother about. If captain and crew got on well, and if there were reasonable food and conditions, then things could be enjoyable. This was rare however. Many captains felt the only way to keeping discipline amongst the crew was to rule with a rod of iron - Drake was considered a 'Dragon' by some of his own crews as well as the Spaniards. Food was usually bad, conditions disease-ridden. Perhaps the Carribean pirates had as good a time as any in this period.

In various periods of Europe's history men have been drawn to adventure by sea. The Phoenicians were great sea-farers a thousand years before Christ was born. There are those who suggest (e.g. Constance Irwin in Fair Gods and Stone Faces) that these ancient mariners were the first to sail across the Atlantic to settle, at least, for a while in America. There is strong evidence to suggest that this may be true. They also very probably sailed completely around Africa, claiming, to the disbelief of the Greeks to whom we owe record of their voyage, that they reached places where the sun was to the north of them, i.e. they were south of the equator.

There are many mysteries and adventures on the seas which we may never learn much more about. One fascinating journey which may have taken place is conjecturally described by Harold S. Gladwin in Men Out Of Asia. Alexander the Great prepared a great fleet which was ready to sail just as Alexander died. After his death there is no record of the fleet. Gladwin plausibly argues that it set off to the east and sailed past India, through the Far East, across the Pacific and finally settled in America. Who knows? The Vikings, and the Irish wandering saints giving themselves up to tithe Irish habit of going away", have left scanty records which nevertheless indicate fabulous voyages. Roman coins have been found on the coast of South America. South American natives worshipped white-faced gods with beards - such as they could never have seen had they not come from old Europe (again, try to read Fair Gods and Stone Faces). Many mysteries remain.

Only now are the seas becoming unadventurous. The seas of adventure for us are becoming the seas of space above the sky, and the ships which will go adventuring in them will probably be better recorded. It is to be hoped that when space travel becomes easier and more common, when we will have means of navigating these new seas which we can not even dream of now, man will not be so dull and unimaginative as the English merchant Adventurers.