were in lat. 16 deg.  N. on the 7th August, and on the 12th we passed the tropic of Cancer, in lat. 23 deg. 30’ N. holding our course to the north.  The 23d the wind came westerly; and on the 29th we passed St Mary, the southeastermost of the Azores, with a fair wind.  We had soundings on the 7th September, 1603, the coast of England being then 40 leagues from us by our reckoning; and we arrived in the Downs on the 11th of that month, where we came safe to anchor:  For which we thanked the Almighty God, who hath delivered us from infinite perils and dangers, in this long and tedious navigation; having been, from the 2d April, 1601, when we sailed from Torbay, two years five months and nine days absent from England.

SECTION II.

Account of Java, and of the first Factory of the English at Bantam; with Occurrences there from the 11th February, 1603, to the 6th October, 1605.[119]

INTRODUCTION.

The entire title of this article, in the Pilgrims of Purchas, is, “A Discourse of Java, and of the first English Factory there, with divers Indian, English, and Dutch Occurrences; written by Mr Edmund Scot, containing a History of Things done from the 11th February, 1602, till the 6th October, 1605, abbreviated.”

[Footnote 119:  Purch.  Pilgr.  I. 164.  Astl.  I. 284.]

It is to be observed, that February, 1602, according to the old way of reckoning time in England, was of the year 1603 as we now reckon, for which reason we have changed the date so far in the title of the section.  Mr Edmund Scot, the author of this account of Java, was one of the factors left there by Sir James Lancaster.  He became latterly head factor at that place, and returned from thence to England with Captain Henry Middleton, leaving Mr Gabriel Towerson to take charge of the trade in his room; doubtless the same unhappy person who fell a sacrifice, seventeen years afterwards, to the avarice, cruelty, and injustice of the Dutch.  This article may be considered as a supplement to the voyage of Sir James Lancaster, and is chiefly adopted as giving an account of the first factory established by the English in the East Indies.  Being in some parts rather tediously minute upon matters of trifling interest, some freedom has been used in abbreviating its redundancies.  The following character is given of it by the editor of Astley’s collection.—­E.

“The whole narrative is very instructive and entertaining, except some instances of barbarity, and affords more light into the affairs of the English and Dutch, as well as respecting the manners and customs of the Javanese and other inhabitants of Bantam, than if the author had dressed up a more formal relation, in the usual way of travellers:  From the minute particulars respecting the Javanese and Chinese, contained in the last sections, the reader will be able to collect a far better notion of the genius of these people, than from the description of the country inserted in the first; and in these will be found the bickerings between the Dutch and English, which laid the foundations of these quarrels and animosities which were afterwards carried to such extreme length, and which gave a fatal blow to the English trade in the East Indies.”—­Astl.