The Gothenburg: sailing back through time

The Gothenburg: sailing back through time

When we went to Gothenburg earlier this year, we passed an 18th century ship moored up at one of the wharfs (as you do).

 

It wasn’t an actual 18th century ship but an reconstruction of a vessel that had sunk just outside Gothenburg in 1745. The wreck was excavated from 1986 to 1992 and the details discovered made it possible to build an exact replica (albeit one equipped with an auxiliary engine and the latest navigational aids). The ship, we learned, was open to the public, but only at weekends and we weren’t going to be staying long enough to see it. So when we learned that it was turning up in London on a stop on its voyage to Asia, we went along to have a look. (Why Asia? The original ship was owned by the Swedish East Indies Company and traded between Sweden and China.)

The vessel was parked up (OK, moored) in Canary Wharf, its 18th century lines a start contrast with the buildings around it.

 

Although new technology has been fitted to make the ship safe (much of it a legal requirement these days) the vessel still relies for the essentials on 18th century engineering. So steering is through a steering wheel connected to the rudder by rope. There is no hydraulics or mechanical assistance and in heavy weather several crew members will be holding the wheel to keep the boat on course. I was interested to see that, unlike in every film I’ve ever watched, the steering wheel was not on the poop deck but down below and the helmsman had no actual sight of the direction the ship was headed, relying entirely on a compass. Interestingly, a replica compass is alongside the wheel and above it there is a modern electronic indication of the ships bearing. There wasn’t a lot of difference between the two but, given that a lot of the navigation was by dead reckoning the couple of points that the magnetic compass was off must have meant that the ship was often not exactly where it thought it was. No wonder that shipwrecks were so common.

The ship was armed with an assortment of cannon. You can visit the gun deck with its reproduction weapons. All of those on board these days are six-pounders. They are regularly used for saluting as the ship enters port, although they are triggered electrically rather than by lighting the powder with a flame. We were assured that the Canon would always have been principally used for signalling rather than defence . Having written (in The White Rajah) about piracy in the South China seas , I must admit I thought this was a rather sanitised view of the historical reality. Perhaps Gothenburg just got lucky – or perhaps pirates took one look at the gun ports and decided to attack someone else.

 

The crew used to eat on the gun deck, and they still do. You can see the tables and benches either side of the guns. When the guns are being used the benches and tables swing up and are secured against the hull out of the way.

We couldn’t see the crew’s cabins (below the gun deck, where the cargo used to be carried). I suspect these are not accurate replicas of the way that the crew used to live back in the 18th century. There was the odd hammock on the gun deck, which is where the crew would have slept originally.

You can admire the navigation and listen to the stories about how the crew would have shared their accommodation with a cow but I imagine that for most people the most impressive thing about a ship like this is the rigging. When we were there we watched people having their first experience of going aloft. (The Gothenburg takes on new crew at every port.) There’s no modern technology to help with hoisting and lowering sail, although there are safety lines and the crew wear a harness. Even with a harness, you’re not going to get me up there in a hurry (or ever). It was impressive, though, to watch people start up visibly nervous and by the time they were making their way along the spar, most of them looked surprisingly relaxed.

 

Fascinating as our glimpse of life on board was, the most striking thing about the ship, to a 21st century eye, is just how beautiful she is.

The White Rajah

My book about a British merchant adventurer’s travels to the East Indies is set around a hundred year’s after the working life of the Gothenburg but the vessels then would have been very similar. There were pirates preying on the ships and James Brooke (my real-life hero) was involved in efforts to reduce the danger they posed to shipping. His six-pounder cannon proved useful on land too, as he got caught up in local politics and found himself taking sides in civil war. This (mostly) true story is a must-read for anyone interested in the reality of the early days of trade with the East Indies. It’s available on Kindle, in paperback and even in hardback.

People say such lovely things about ‘The White Rajah’. Now I’m just waiting for sales to catch up.

People say such lovely things about ‘The White Rajah’. Now I’m just waiting for sales to catch up.

I’ve had a couple of really lovely reviews for The White Rajah recently. The latest was last Friday. Here it is:

It’s amazing how much difference something like that makes. I saw it late in the day and I was quite choked up. Believe me: most writers who say they don’t read their reviews are liars. Reviews matter in practical terms (Amazon reviews sell books) but they can also be a source of joy to writers. Heaven knows we don’t do it for the money! A kind word makes so much difference.

There was one fly in this particular ointment. Someone recently commented that they thought The White Rajah was far and away better than the James Burke books (which he also enjoyed) and wondered why the John Williamson series was not more popular. (It’s a view I’ve heard before.)

I think I agree with him that the short answer is that this kind of writing is deeply unfashionable. In fact, The White Rajah was agented way back when and rejected by several leading publishers on the grounds that it was “too difficult”. That was probably partly a comment on the language (it’s a first person account by a Victorian writer) and partly the subject matter. In any case, they recommended I try something more commercial and James Burke was the result, which all goes to show that publishers understand the market better than many authors give them credit for.

The logic of the publishers was that once I had established myself with something more popular I could ease my readership onto the slightly more challenging John Williamson stories. It never worked. To my delight, sales of James Burke are healthy (even healthier since I took them back from the publisher and published them independently). I am so grateful to the people who read them and support me in writing new ones. But, however much I try, I can’t persuade more than a handful to try the substantially better reviewed John Williamson trilogy.

It’s frustrating but I suppose it is what it is. Serious novels take more effort. Although my wife is always telling me how wonderful War and Peace is, I have never read it. Even Proust’s À la recherche du temps perdu (which is a really lovely book) has seen me bogged down a third of the way through for years now. People don’t have long evenings with nothing better to do than apply themselves to a serious novel. I must just remember to be grateful to everyone who buys the Burke books (and my fantasy efforts). But if any of you would like to get your teeth into something more serious, it would be lovely if you could give The White Rajah a try. (And if you don’t want to commit to that there is a short story about John Williamson and the White Rajah in the recently published short-story collection, Tales of Empire.)

The John Williamson Papers – completing the trilogy

The John Williamson Papers – completing the trilogy

It’s time! I’m republishing Back Home on 27 November.

What’s it all about?

Back Home completes the trilogy of books narrated by John Williamson. In The White Rajah he leaves his home in Devon and takes up life as a sailor, eventually ending up in Borneo with the eponymous White Rajah, James Brooke. At the end of that book, unable to live with what he has seen in Brooke’s war on pirates, he leaves, travelling on to India. The next book finds him in the town of Cawnpore as the Indian Mutiny breaks out. With his working class roots and his homosexuality, Williamson is never at ease with the English rulers of the Empire and when Cawnpore is the centre of a bloody conflict between Indians and Europeans, Williamson finds his loyalties torn. Faced with the death of friends on both sides of the conflict, Williamson eventually breaks down and has to return to England.

Back Home is the end of his travels, back in Devon, where it all began. He is to have one final adventure, though. Travelling to London to find an old friend who has vanished into the city, Williamson is caught up in a world of poverty and crime. It’s a time of growing tension between Britain and France and there are those who believe that a criminal conspiracy in the London slums is organised from Paris. Williamson becomes a pawn in a deadly game being played by the British security services.

The battles of colonial rule are, in the end, the conflict between the powerful and the powerless and those battles can be as deadly on the streets of London as in the jungles of Borneo or on the plains of India. Back Home in England, Williamson faces his most dangerous enemy yet.

A 99p/99c offer on Cawnpore

All of the books in the John Williamson Papers stand alone, but if you want to see how Williamson changes as a result of his experiences, you might enjoy reading the trilogy in order. Each one leads directly into the next, so Cawnpore ends with him landing back in Devon and Back Home starts with his journey from the port to the farm where he was born. If you want to read Cawnpore before you read Back Home, I’m offering it for just 99p for one week from Monday (15 November).

The history behind the film ‘Edge of the World’ (and my book ‘The White Rajah’)

Last week’s blog post brought us up to the point where the new film, Edge of the World, picks up the story of James Brooke.

Edge of the World has Brooke’s party landing rather randomly in Borneo and promptly being captured by a party of native Dyaks.

Brooke landing in Borneo. (Probably didn’t happen quite like this.)

In fact, Brooke arrived in Kuching, the capital of the province of Sarawak, where (as we learned last week) he knew he would find the de facto ruler of Borneo, Muda Hassim.

Hassim was in Sarawak, rather than his capital, because of a long-running uprising there.

The politics of Borneo in the mid-19th century were Byzantine. Power was held by Malays. The indigenous people – the Dyaks – were relatively powerless. When Brooke arrived in Sarawak, Hassim was occupied in putting down a rising, of Dyaks, who were supported by a faction within the Malay community – the Siniawan Malays. In fact, they were almost certainly supported by elements within the Malay court who were trying to reduce Hassim’s power. By now the uprising had been going on for four years. Hassim had been in Sarawak for months and nothing seemed to have changed since he moved his court there. Hassim saw Brooke’s arrival as providential.

Hassim’s audience hall in Sarawak

Brooke had taken on additional crew in Singapore (including an interpreter called John Williamson, whose name I stole for the narrator in The White Rajah). Brooke now had a crew of 28 men on board the Royalist. Hassim looked at her six cannon and the White Ensign hanging at her mast and saw her as a symbol of British power. If he could get Brooke involved in the war, he thought he could finally bring things to a conclusion and return to the seat of power in Brunei.

At first, Brooke refused to get drawn in. In the end, though, the temptation was irresistible. Here was a chance for excitement and adventure which could be economically justified as improving his trade prospects and which also appealed to his patriotism as it would strengthen the British presence in the region and put one in the eye to the Dutch. Here is Brooke’s own account of his attitude to intervening in what was, effectively, a civil war in Borneo.

I may here state my motives for being a spectator at all, or participator (as may turn out), in this scene. In the first place, I must confess that curiosity strongly prompted me; since to witness the Malays, Chinese [yes, there were Chinese too, immigrants who essentially monopolised trade], and Dayaks in warfare was so new, that the novelty alone might plead an excuse for this desire. But it was not the only motive; for my presence is a stimulus to our own party, and will probably depress the other in proportion. I look upon the cause of the Raja [Hassim] as most just and righteous; and the speedy close of the war will be rendering a service to humanity, especially if brought about by treaty.

Brooke provided advice and encouragement to Hassim and finally, when things seemed likely to drag on even with his urging Hassim to attack more vigorously, he sent for two of his six-pounder guns and some of his men to be despatched from the Royalist to the front-line (for want of a better word) at a place called Balidah, just upriver from Kuching. Within days of their arrival, the rebel defences were breached, but Hassim’s army refused to storm the breach. Brooke, despairing of any end to the fighting, made plans to return to Singapore.

His diary tells what happened next:

I explained to [Hassim] how useless it was my remaining and intimated to him my intention of departing; but his deep regret was so visible, that even all the self-command of the native could not disguise it. He begged, he entreated me to stay, and offered me the country of Siniawan and Sarawak, and its government and trade, if I would only stop, and not desert him.

Brooke did not immediately accept this offer but he did decide to stay and support Hassim’s efforts in the war, where the men of the Royalist soon proved decisive.

With the war over, Hassim vacillated on his promise to make Brooke ruler, but ultimately he seems to have felt that the benefits of retaining Brooke’s support were worth the cost of allowing him to govern a province which Hassim regarded as not that important and which probably, because of the insurrection, seemed more trouble than it was worth. He may also have considered that having the province under the control of an Englishman would offer some sort of protection against Dutch expansionism. He will certainly have considered that it might bolster his own position in the intrigues between himself and other powerful Malay factions.

Kuching

Negotiations dragged on for almost a year with Brooke often threatening to sail away and leave Hassim to his own devices. Eventually, though,Hassim drew up and signed a document giving Brooke the government of Sarawak and on 24 November 1841 he was ceremoniously declared Rajah.

The White Rajah

The White Rajah is a fictionalised account of the true story I’ve outlined above. It tells how Brooke came to rule Sarawak and something of what happened afterwards.

British colonialism (though Brooke’s personal kingdom was never technically a colony) was neither the unmitigated good that it was presented as up until the late 20th century, nor the straightforwardly exploitationist affair that we are often told it was nowadays. The White Rajah tries to tell a good tale while exploring some of the moral nuances of the Age of Empire.

The White Rajah is available in hardback for £14.99. You can also buy it in paperback for £6.99 or, if you prefer Kindle, just £3.99.

James Brooke and his Journey to the Edge of the World

If you read the Daily Mirror on Saturday (26 June), you will have seen an interesting article about James Brooke. Although they were kind enough to mention me and The White Rajah, its focus is on the film, Edge of the World, which I reviewed a couple of weeks ago.

The film starts dramatically with James Brooke arriving in Sarawak. The White Rajah starts rather earlier with Brooke’s first expedition to the South China Seas, in 1834, five years before Edge of the World begins.

I can see why Brooke’s first voyage didn’t fit with the excitement of the film. Brooke’s first voyage was supposed to combine adventure and exploration with commercial success promising both pleasure and profit. In fact, it was a disaster. The whole enterprise was ill-conceived.

The narrator of The White Rajah is a seaman, recruited to the crew of Brooke’s Findlay, a 290 ton brig. As an experienced sailor (which Brooke was not) he could see immediately what the first of Brooke’s mistakes was. As he describes it in the book:

The Findlay was to be no gentleman’s pleasure yacht but a working ship, paying her way on the short but busy passages between the islands of the Indies. With all her pretty paint, her toil would be much the same as that of the colliers I had sailed for ever to and fro between Newcastle and London. Such work could well be handled by a schooner, but the Findlay was a brig. The square rigging took a full crew to handle. There were 32 seamen and a full complement of officers and officers’ servants, making the Findlay an expensive ship to run.

This gives an idea of how much rigging there is on a brig

As it became increasingly obvious that the Findlay expedition was never going to be profitable, rows between Brooke and the Master – a professional seaman – became more and more vicious, until eventually Brooke decided to give up the enterprise and return to England, leaving the Findlay in the East.

That should have been that. Brooke should have learned the lesson of his youthful escapades and settled down to responsible employment. But Brooke seemed incapable of settling down to anything. His father’s pension meant that there was no urgency in finding alternative employment and he remained in England doing nothing in particular. Not that long after his return, though, his father died, leaving him with enough money to relaunch his idea of voyaging in the Far East.

He had originally intended to buy a schooner and he was now in a position to do so. In March 1836 he offered £2500 for a 142 ton ship, the Royalist. The illustration below is not the Royalist, but a schooner rigged vessel very like her. You can see how much less rigging there is.

It was, Brooke wrote:

… as trim a craft as you could wish, ideally suited to trading in these waters. As if to demonstrate she was no mere merchant, though, she mounted six six-pounders and a number of swivel guns. Most important, her mainmast carried the White Ensign, for though she was a private vessel, the Royalist belonged to the Royal Yacht Squadron and, in foreign ports, she had all the privileges of a man-of-war.

Because a schooner has so much less rigging, it is much easier to handle and Brooke needed a crew of just 19.

After a proving trip in the Mediterranean he set off again in December 1838. He had announced that he was to sail to the South China Seas where the Royalist would ostensibly work as a trading vessel. Trade, though, was never his primary goal. For him the emphasis was on adventure. At the time Britain and the Netherlands were disputing for advantage in what was then called – tellingly – the Dutch East Indies. Brooke had decided that the power of the Dutch was in decline and that now was the time to expand British influence in the area and that he was the man for the job. He would sail to Singapore, which Raffles had recently developed as the centre of British influence in the region, and using that as his base, he would explore into Borneo.

Luckily for him, he arrived in Singapore at the ideal time to build links with Borneo The political buzz there was all about Muda Hassim. Raja Muda Hassim was the Bendahara of Brunei. The Bendahara is an administrative position within classical Malay kingdoms comparable to a vizier. Essentially he runs the place, though he is nominally responsible to the Sultan. However, the legitimacy of the Sultan lies with the bendahara. If you think of Muda Hassim as the Sultan of Brunei, you will be hopelessly wrong in terms of the formalities of the Brunei court, but you’ll have a fair handle on the realities of the situation.

Anyway, a few months before Brooke’s arrival in Singapore a British brig called the Napoleon had been wrecked in Borneo. Muda Hassim had treated the crew with every courtesy, fed and clothed them at his own expense, and arranged for their safe return to Singapore.

This is how my narrator viewed the situation in The White Rajah:

In part of the world where piracy was still widespread and where a lost sailor was an easy victim for all manner of thieves and rascals, this was more than a common politeness. It reinforced suggestions that the Sultan was tired of the way the Dutch were lording it over the China Seas as if they had a divine right to colonise the place. If he were cooling toward the Hollanders and turning toward Britain as the rumour said, then Borneo offered wonderful opportunities for trade … opportunities the merchants of Singapore would be anxious to exploit.

As you have probably already realised, Brooke was not a man to set out a plan and stick carefully to it, but rather somebody always more than willing to take advantage of any change in his circumstances to strike out in a new direction. He decided to seize this opportunity to develop a relationship with Hassim.

Back to The White Rajah.

[Brooke] came up with the idea that [Hassim] should be thanked in a formal letter, beautifully penned by one of the Governor’s clerks on the finest parchment available – which in Singapore, in those days, was probably not saying much.

The letter was produced and ceremonially signed by the Chairman of the Chamber of Commerce and half the nabobs of the European community. Mr Brooke undertook to deliver it personally and, on the strength of the goodwill generated, persuaded the Governor to produce an official introduction for him which, taken together with the White Ensign fluttering proudly from the Royalist’s mast, was likely to suggest his expedition had more authority than an impartial judge might understand to be the case.

On Saturday, 27th July 1839, the Royalist slipped quietly away from Singapore and headed East to Borneo.

Brooke had taken the first step on the road to running his own country – and the story in my novel had finally caught up with the start of the film.

You can read what happened next in next week’s blog post. Or you can read the whole story in The White Rajah, available in hardback, paperback and on Kindle.

If you want to watch Edge of the World, you can buy it here:

iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/movie/edge-of-the-world/id1568753299

Amazon DVD: https://amz.run/4aGX