This time, fortune smiled on Cocks. As soon as Wickham arrived in Bantam, the first anchorage on his long voyage to England, he fell ill, probably with typhoid, malaria or dysentery. Weak from the high fever, he was given emergency treatment, but soon breathed his last. After a relatively healthy life in Japan for many years, he had possibly not developed enough immunity from tropical diseases. The scandal he was stoking around Cocks was buried with him, in a grave far from home. Later, it emerged he had never intended to return to England after all. His earlier visit to Bantam had convinced him that this was the place, rather than Japan, to make his fortune.

Wickham's death was even better news for his estranged wife. She and his dying mother went into the required mourning, but as soon as they were informed by Wickham's executors that his estate was worth an astonishing ￡1400 and Mrs Wickham was the chief beneficiary, the now devoted wife hurried to the London East India Company office to claim her dearest husband's bequest. However, the directors refused to pay a single penny. Nobody believed that Wickham, who earned only ￡40 a year and working for only five years ‘in a place where the company lost all’, would have been able to make that kind of fortune. They suspected he had focused all his energies on his private trade. In that, they were right, but Mrs Wickham was no pushover. With the whiff of a fortune in her nostrils, she decided to fight. The battle lasted more than six years. She even took her case to Chancery and finally the company handed all the money to her. The scoundrel's wife was now a very rich woman.

With Wickham's death, Cocks mood improved. He threw more parties for his men and local contacts. There were more dancing girls and more alcohol. Occasionally however, the parties yielded useful information. At one, Cocks learnt that the Dutch were starting to occupy their trading areas and becoming increasingly aggressive towards not only the native chieftains but also their trading rivals, the Portuguese, the Spanish and even the English. The Dutch had always admired the Japanese skill in martial arts and now they were employing Japanese samurai warriors to attack rivals on their behalf. In 1617, they attacked an English ship called the Swan off the coast of India. According to Cocks’ Spanish informer, the attack was ferocious. Samurai swords severed English arms and legs.