6 THE "SEPARATE VOYAGES" OF THE COMPANY £250 to the first voyage should advance another £200 for a second voyage. " In consideration of which he should receive pepper at a settled price to the amount of £500, which he should dispose of at his own discre- tion.' ' The four ships of the first voyage were taken over for the second, and sailed again from Gravesend in March, 1604, but with a cargo of only £1142 in goods. Its total freight, including specie, barely amounted to £12,302, as against the £28,602 sent out by the first voy- age. Even this slender equipment was achieved only by making the profits of the first voyage responsible also for the second, so that practically the two ventures traded as a joint concern. Captain (afterwards Sir Henry) Middleton, in chief command of the squadron, loaded two ships with pepper at Bantam, where Lan- caster had left a factory, and sent on the two others to Amboyna for the finer spices, particularly cloves. He returned to England in 1606, having lost the Susan on the voyage. The joint profits of this and of the first voyage yielded, as I have said, 95 per cent., but the final division could not be made till 1609. These timid ventures contrasted with the magnifi- cent operations of the Dutch Company, with its capital of £540,000 and its great yearly fleets. The English political economy of the day denounced the folly of sending forth the treasure of the realm; for the store of precious metals possessed by a country was then reckoned the measure of the nation's wealth. If we remember that the whole goods shipped by the first
