Page:Early English adventurers in the East (1917).djvu/222

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218
EARLY ENGLISH ADVENTURERS IN THE EAST

were forthwith issued for the apprehension of the whole of the English within the jurisdiction of the Government. Towerson was first seized at the English factory and kept a prisoner there. The other members of the staff, John Beomont, Edward Collings, Emanuel Thomson, Wm. Webber, Ephraim Kamsey, Timothy Johnson, John Fardo and Robert Brown, were sent on board the Dutch ship in the roads. Afterwards Samuel Coulson, John Clark and George Sharrock who were at Hitoe and Wm. Griggs and John Sadler, who were at Larica, were brought in. Finally, the party was completed by the addition of John Powle, John Wetherall and Thomas Ladbrook who had charge of the factory at Cambello.

The Dutch net had been cast so wide as to include every single representative of the English nation, however mean his status. For example, Fardo and Sadler were butlers and Brown was a tailor, while Ramsey and Webber were clerks. If we are to accept as accurate the descriptions given in the Dutch records the unfortunate company was thoroughly representative of the various parts of the kingdom. Collings came from London, Beomont from Berkshire, Griggs from Bedfordshire, Webber from Devon, Coulson from Newcastle, Wetherall from Rutland. Price, as may be surmised, was a Welshman, and Brown and Ramsey hailed from Scotland—rather curiously as there were few Scotchmen in the East India Company's service in these early days, though a century later they were very numerous.

It was probably without serious misgiving that the prisoners faced their confinement. How little they suspected the fate that was preparing for them is shown by the well attested circumstance that during the examina-