The Wide Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook

making life impossible for the English in the Spice Islands. Then in 1618 came news of the capture of the Zwaarte Leeuw at Bantam. The Companies were now at war and the English in Siam isolated. It was while trying to redress this situation that Jourdain, in 1619, was surprised off Patani and killed by that marksman’s bullet.

Women held up their jewellery to beg for mercy from the flames or from the water, while others held up their infants to try to protect them. Da Gama watched impassively, “cruelly and without any pity” as every last passenger and crew member drowned before his eyes.