In the midst of a lively blockade of the Red Sea ports they were joined by Captain John Saris, with four ships, belonging to the company's eighth voyage, who agreed to lend his forces for whatever the combined fleets undertook, if granted a third of the profits for the benefit of his particular set of subscribers. All this anomalous confusion between the various interests within the same body corporate could have but one issue. The rival commanders took to quarrelling over the disposition of the hundred thousand pieces-of-eight which Middleton hoped to squeeze out of the Governor of Mocha for outrages upon the English fleet. Strife ran high between them, and in the end Saris in the Clove and Towerson in the Hector sailed away from the Red Sea, leaving Middleton and Downton to settle matters on their own account. Powerless to obtain compensation from the Governor of Mocha, Middleton proceeded to make unceremonious levy on all the shipping he could lay his hands upon. On August 16th the Trade's Increase set sail, in company with the Peppercorn, for Tiku, where two others of the company's ships were anchored. Middleton very soon discovered that the Trade's Increase was in a leaky condition; he had hardly got her out of Tiku when she ran aground--for the second time in her brief history. She was floated and brought opposite Pulo Panzang, in Bantam Bay, where the cargo was taken out and stored on shore. The ship, which King James had christened and in which Sir Henry Middleton took such pride, was careened on the beach for repairs. During the process a renegade Spaniard formed a plot to burn her to the water's edge, and one night carried it successfully into execution--a catastrophe which is said to have so affected the doughty old commander, Sir Henry Middleton, that he sickened and died at Bantam, May 24, 1613. The many exploits of Middleton, the _doyen_ of the company's servants in the East, well deserve to be read: the hardships he had suffered, the difficulties he had to contend with, the jealous cabals of which he had been the victim. Among the many insubordinates that prevailed, Captain Nicholas Downton, one of the ablest commanders in the service, was not to be persuaded, despite the plots and schemes occasionally undertaken for that purpose, to abandon the respect and loyalty he owed the old sea-dog. Once, when in the Red Sea, Middleton wrote sharply to Downton for an alleged fault; the latter was filled "with admiration and grief." "Sir," he replied, "I can write nothing so plain, nor with that sincerity, but malicious men, when they list, may make injurious construction; but evil come to me if I meant ill to Sir Henry Middleton or any part of the business. God be judge between him and me, if ever I deserved the least evil thought from him. I desire that he were so much himself that he would neither be led nor carried by any injurious person to abuse an inseparable friend."