Brooke joined the East India Company and, in July or August 1621, he was appointed master of the Tryal.
[1][2]: 17 Brooke was assigned the task of making the first British East India Company voyage across the Indian Ocean while keeping no further north than the 35th parallel, to take advantage of the "Roaring Forties", then to turn sharply north making for Bantam, west Java (then Batavia).
Brooke and nine others, including his son, took to a skiff, leaving the 128 crew to scramble for a place on the longboat.
For his return to England, Brooke was given command of the, as he claimed, infested Moone, leaving Batavia in February 1625.
[2]: 22–23 Thomas Bright accused Brooke of theft of company valuables and dishonesty in dealing with his crew upon the wreck of the Tryal.