The second edition of Coverte’s account of the fourth East India Company voyage to the East Indies, following the first edition published in London in 1612. The author was steward on board the Ascension under Capt. Sharpey they left Plymouth with a companion vessel the Union , in March 1607, and, on their voyage south, were among the first Englishmen to see the Cape of Good Hope, arriving there in July 1608. The Ascension having separated from the Union in a storm reached India, via Madagascar, Pemba Island and Socotra, where the ship ran aground while approaching Surat. Not granted permission to remain in Surat, the crew departed to various destinations. Coverte and others set out for the Moghul Court at Agra, arriving there in December 1609. He and other crew members left Agra in January 1610 “with the intention of making their way back to the Levant by the overland route. Travelling by way of Kandahar, Esfahan, and Baghdad…they reached Aleppo in December 1610 and from the coast of the Levant sailed for England. They subsequently arrived home in April 1611” (Howgego).
An absorbing account presented in the form of a travel diary, Penrose described the work as a “vigorous narrative … it relates its author’s reception by the Emperor Jahangir, and his tedious journey across India, Afghanistan, and Persia, and as such is one of the best examples of a travel journal that the period produced.”
As pointed out by Parker (Books to Build an Empire) “This voyage marks the lowest depth to which the company’s misfortunes sank in its early years, for the loss of the two ships nearly ruined it financially … during these years of unprecedented English travel and trade into the east there was a great dearth of literature describing the voyages of the East India Company’s ships. between 1608 and 1614 only one book appeared which described England’s new-found commerce.”
An extremely popular travel account, a third London edition appeared in 1631 and German translations were printed in 1617 and 1648. The account was also included in compilations of discovery and exploration published by De Bry, Hulsius, and van der Aa.
STC, 5896; Howgego, C211; Penrose Travel & Discovery in the Renaissance, p324.; Parker Books to Build an Empire, p.181; Mendelssohn, p.388.
