In February 1612, the Dutch vessel arrived in Bantam and discharged Andreezen and Hill. Bantam was a heaven on earth for Westerners to buy spices, but it also held the horrors of hell. The native Javanese were as expert at chopping up human bodies, as they were chasing game. Severe tropical diseases such as dysentery, cholera and malaria were ever-present dangers.

It was truly a place of extremes, from the burning orange of sunrise to the ebony black of night. The sudden descent of night frightened men who were used to a twilight but, for Hill, it must have been rather convenient to make his secret visit to the English East India Company.

It was on 16 December 1602, that Admiral Sir James Lancaster, commanding a fleet of five ships, had established the English East India Company in Bantam. He left eleven men and ordered them to buy and stock spices. However, within a few months, the factory chief and his deputy had died of tropical disease and several other men were sick with life-threatening conditions. The factory was not much more than a hut, built with frail wood and cane and roofed with thin thatch. It looked thoroughly shabby. Because of the terrible heat, they had to keep all the windows open all day long, but this brought in constant damp from the monsoon rains; filthy muddy water soaked through the wall and bacteria thrived in the humid air. The poor men were attacked by the burning heat in the day and by a cloud of mosquitoes in the hut at night. Even with all this, there were many worse places where the English chose to settle in the East.

In the darkness, Hill quietly knocked on the factory's flimsy door. It was opened with extreme caution, for the Englishmen lived with fear. When Hill introduced himself, he was allowed in with some suspicion and found several miserable Englishmen there. They told Hill that they could hardly sleep for fear of being attacked with darts and flaming arrows by the Javanese terrorists. Their thatched roof had been set alight several times. The chief factor came to shake hands with Hill and introduced himself as Augustine Spalding.