ONE OF MY ANCESTORS WAS BRIEFLY the master of one of the jewels of the East India Company’s fleet, a 1,000-ton East Indiaman named the Royal James. This enormous merchant ship launched in 1616 and undertook three voyages to the Far East and Japan in the years to 1630. Between 1613 and 1617, the company had 29 ships: by the end of 1617 eight had returned with cargoes, four had been either lost or broken up, two had fallen into the hands of the Dutch, and 15 were still in the East Indies.
It wouldn’t surprise me if John Lyman was appointed master of the vessel because his uncle, Sir John Lyman, was an early “venturer” in the “Company of Merchants of London trading into the East Indies” — and this was, of course, a family business. It wouldn’t surprise me either if the ship was named by Sir John,
