1616:WILLIAM KEELING IN CALICUT

Twelve year old boy in an English Factory

William Keeling was an amateur producer of Shakespeare's plays.Probably,he wanted to make money,when he led an East India Company expedition to India and the East.

Invested with the title of Commander-in Chief,he was keen to expand the activities of the Company.He sailed down the coast of India,in the ship,The Red Dragon,periodically exchanging fire with Portuguese ships.In March 1616,while off Cranganore,he was intercepted by an emissary of the Zamorin of Calicut.The Zamorin,who was preparing to attack the Portuguese Fort at Cranganore,offered to give the Company,trading rites at Calicut in exchange for assistance and an agreement was concluded.Keeling left behind four men and a 12 year old boy to establish a factory.

Red Dragon,Malacca,1602

They had a stock of trade goods-tin,lead,cloth and half a ton of an automatic gun captured from the Portuguese.They also had a stock of gun powder.One of the men was a gunner and he would show the Indians how to operate the small cannon Keeling had given to the Zamorin.

The factory,the first English factory on Malabar coast,didn't prosper.When Keeling sailed away,the Zamorin,disappointed with the amount of help he had received,failed to supply spices.A year later,when the fleet returned from the East,three of the men were taken away.A man and the boy were left behind to learn the language.The man soon died of dysentery,the boy,Edward Pearce,would,25 years later,start the Company's trade at Basra.

The Company had selected India as one of the destinations for its third expedition.Its main task was to collect spices from the eastern islands,but it was also instructed to investigate the market for English woollen goods in exchange for spices at Aden.It was also to assess the possibility of buying textiles in India to exchange for spices in the Far East.Its three ships left England on 12 March 1607.The Consent left early and caught the trade winds.The Dragon,captained by William Keeling,and the Hector,captained by William Hawkins,missed the wind and lost six months as they were blown to Brazil and then back to West Africa.There,while they waited for a good wind to round the Cape,Keeling's men gave performances of Hamlet and Richard II.In the Indian Ocean,the winds for Aden were unfavourable. It was decided that the Dragon should go directly to the East and the Hector go to India.

Keeling(1578-1620)had commanded the Susanna on the second Company voyage in 1604.During this his men were reduced to 14 and a ship from the fleet,had vanished.He discovered the Cocos(Keeling)Islands in 1609,as he was going home from Banda to England.

Red Dragon,used by the Company for five voyages to the East Indies,was originally,Scourge of Malice,a 38 gun ship,ordered by Goerge Clifford,3rd Earl of Cumberland.She was built and launched at Deptford dock yard in 1595.The description of the ship varies from 600 to 900 tons;it was named Scourge of Malice by Queen Elizabeth I.The Earl had built the ship to attack the Spanish Main,after Sir Francis Drake was defeated at San Juan in 1595.The Earl travelled in the ship's first voyage,till Plymouth,when he was recalled by the Queen.The fleet travelled forward,and its main mast was damaged in a violent storm.After repairs,it began a voyage as a flag ship of a fleet of 20 vessels,on 6 March 1598.The Earl wanted to capture Brazil.The fleet attacked the fort at San Juan and castle of El Morro,on 16 June.Though the fleet achieved honour for the country,the Earl made only about a tenth of the money he invested on the voyage.

East India Company bought the ship for 3700 pounds,though the Earl asked for 4000.Its first voyage under Company was on 13 February 1601,and the Commander was James Lancaster.It came upto Nicobar Islands.It captured a ship on a voyage from Santhome,Chennai,and looted its cargo of spices.The second voyage was on 25 March 1604 and the Commander,Sir Henry Middleton.It came to Surat in its 10th voyage,in September,1612.It secured trading rights at Surat.It was in the next voyage,begun on 23 February 1615,Keeling as Captain,it came to Calicut.Keeling's briefing was to restore Asian trading links.Keeling tried to smuggle his pregnant wife aboard the ship,but was not allowed.
On his return,King James I appointed Keeling a Groom of the Chamber and in C.1618,he was named Captain of Cowes Castle,on the Isle of Wight,where he died in 1620.

Keeling Island

A fragment of Keeling's diaries survives,which record the performances of Hamlet,off the coast of Sierra Leone,on 5 September 1607 and at Socrota,in 31 March,1608,and Richard II in Sierra Leone,30 September 1607.The fragment is suspected to be forgery.
The last voyage of the ship was in October 1619,commanded by Robert Bonner.It was attacked by a Dutch fleet at Secoo,and was taken or sunk.

The Hamlet performance in this ship is the first recorded performance of that play.

© Ramachandran 

Read,FRANCOISE PYRARD IN CALICUT