Black Tudors by Miranda Kaufmann

Author:Miranda Kaufmann
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781786071859
Publisher: Oneworld Publications
Published: 2017-10-19T04:00:00+00:00

Flushing, where the Silver Falcon mysteriously docked in 1619.

Braems’s factor in Flushing, John Vandhurst, paid the customs required for the ship to be unloaded. Thomas Lawley, an English merchant based in Holland, agreed to buy half the tobacco on board for seven shillings a pound, but would not pay for it until he had sold it on.75 Lawley, Vandhurst and Braems then made a bargain with some merchants of Amsterdam, who agreed to purchase the tobacco at eight shillings and sixpence a pound. They looked set to make a fine profit, and Braems boasted that his investors would have a tenfold return on their investment.

Unfortunately for Braems, Lord Zouche was incensed when he heard that his pinnace had gone to Flushing ‘contrary to my order and the command I gave’. He immediately dispatched the Mayor of Dover, William Warde, to find the ship and ‘see what goods she hath and to get into your hands and bring on with you to Dover so much thereof as ye shall think fitting in your discretion’. Accompanied by Thomas Fulnetby, the lieutenant of Deal Castle, who had also invested in the voyage, Warde tracked down the wayward vessel and confiscated one hundred and fifty rolls of the best tobacco on Zouche’s behalf. When the Amsterdam merchants found out, they backed out of their deal with Braems. Even though he offered them ‘the value of the said 150 rolls of tobacco and one thousand pounds Flemish more to hold their said bargain’, they ‘utterly refused so to do’.76

To make matters worse, before Braems was able to sell any of the Silver Falcon’s cargo to anyone else, it was arrested, on a procuration sent from Spain, as ‘stolen goods’, after Jacob Dragoboard claimed ownership on behalf of Francisco de Conynge of Seville. Braems suffered a further blow in 1621 when, ‘after the peace expired between the Hollanders and the Spaniards’, the ‘officer of the States of the Netherlands did attach and arrest . . . the ships lading as Spanish goods’. The tobacco, much of it ‘rotten, spoiled and nothing worth’, lay under embargo in a Flushing cellar, while the English, the Spanish and the Dutch disputed its ownership. As Daniel Braems put it, Lord Zouche’s ‘taking and carrying away of the said tobacco’ was a ‘great hindrance and loss’ and ultimately led ‘to the overthrow of the gain of the said voyage’.

Jacob Braems was not only taken to court in The Hague. In England, his investors were far from happy, despite his attempts to pay them off. Over the next few years, he became embroiled in legal proceedings in the Chancery Court at Dover – where the case was presided over by none other than Sir Henry Mainwaring – as well as the High Court of Admiralty and the Exchequer Court in London.77

By mid-September 1619, John Anthony had returned to Dover aboard the Silver Falcon. The dispute between Lord Zouche and Jacob Braems, which would have a significant bearing on his future, grew increasingly bitter, and was not to be resolved overnight.

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