- The Guardian,
- Saturday March 4 2000
Nathaniel's Nutmeg
Giles Milton
Sceptre, £6.99, 388pp
This book has been marketed within an inch of its life. First, there is the not-so-modish title. (Captain Corelli's Old Hat.) The Nathaniel of the title is Nathaniel Courthope, whose story occupies about 8 per cent of this book, 30-odd pages before its end. Neither did Nathaniel have, trade, grow or even handle any nutmeg. He was holed up on the island of Run, besieged by the Dutch for 1,540 days, and while it is true that the whole fuss was about nutmeg, it could not, strictly speaking, be called his.
It gets worse. The book's subtitle is "How One Man's Courage Changed the Course of History". There is no doubting Courthope's courage. You don't hole up on an island against a superior fleet, with no natural water sources (he and his men had to drink their supplies with clenched teeth to keep the fauna out) and nothing to eat but sago without a good deal of the right stuff. But his courage did not change the course of history - it simply delayed it a bit.
If the course of history was changed, it was by Sir Thomas Dale (the same man who had brought Pocahontas back from America in 1616), who could have relieved the siege and driven the Dutch out of the spice islands for good, but who hesitated at the last minute and let the enemy regroup. But then "How One Man's Dithering Changed the Course of History" is not such an uplifting message, is it?
Now that we've got that out of the way, we can celebrate the book. Giles Milton doesn't make too much of a fuss about it, but we are talking about momentous history being decided here. Next time you contemplate the wealth and beauty of Amsterdam, or wonder how it is that the inhabitants of Manhattan speak English rather than Dutch - and then wonder if there might be any connection between the two facts - bear in mind that all the answers are here. In short, Manhattan was traded for the island of Run, a speck of land so obscure it now only appears on specialised maps.
As you'll have gathered, this is about the spice trade, about which we have some hazy notion ("ah yes, the spice trade") but which repays a closer look. One penn'orth of nutmeg in the East Indies went for 50 shillings in London - that's a 60,000 per cent mark-up, I think - so imagine the incentive for greed, treachery, freebooting and murder. The stories are terrific, and Milton has trawled through the records (primary research - maximum respect) to intoxicating effect. The East India Company used to be a turn-off at school but if they'd told us just how gloves-off this capitalism could be the kids' attention would have been guaranteed.
Read about William Hawkins's dealings with the psychotic and unpredictable Moghul Emperor Jehangir (endless piss-ups, gladiatorial competitions between people and lions); Captain William Keeling making his crew put on Hamlet (in Africa, in 1607, possibly the first amateur production); and the Massacre of Amboyna, where the Dutch tortured and then murdered the English inhabitants on trumped-up charges.
The English may have been thugs and pirates but at least the natives, when they had a choice, preferred us to the Dutch. In fact the Dutch come off appallingly: you can see how their settlers came up with such charming ideas as apartheid. Only the treaty of Westminster (1654) has stopped me from organising a punitive expedition against the perfidious Hollander - and even so I wouldn't rule out a sortie within the next few months, just to show them (a) who's boss and (b) that we haven't forgotten.
