Sir Henry Middleton

Who was Sir Henry Middleton?

Sir Henry Middleton was a sea captain and adventurer. He negotiated with the sultan of Ternate and the sultan of Tidore, competed against Dutch and Portuguese interests in the East Indies but still managed to buy cloves.

He was taken on at the Woolwich ship yards working first on the East India Company's Scourge of Malice. The company was organising its first expedition to "East India". The prominent Elizabethan trader and privateer, James Lancaster was to command the four ships. Second in command was Middleton's brother John, a company captain who secured Henry as a mercantile agent with a berth on the voyage. They set off in April 1601 arriving in Aceh, Sumatra in June 1602.

Middleton was sent onwards to Priaman on the west coast where he procured substantial quantities of pepper and cloves before returning home safely in the summer of 1603.

In 1604 Middleton commanded a second voyage heading for the islands of Ternate, Tidore, Ambon and Banda in the Moluccas. They would encounter severe Dutch East India Company hostility, which saw the beginning of Anglo-Dutch competition for access to spices.