On the orders of the Earl of Cumberland he took part in the action of Faial in 1594 as commander of the Samson, which resulted in the destruction of the Portuguese carrack Las Cinco Chagas.
[1] Early in 1610 he was appointed to command the EIC's ship Peppercorn, and sailed under Sir Henry Middleton in the Trade's Increase on the Company's sixth voyage to the Far East accompanied by the Darling.
For the next eighteen months they continued, for the most part in the Red Sea or Arabian Sea, visiting the several ports, and seeking to establish a trade; as to which Downton relates that having bought a quantity of pepper at Tecoa on the west coast of Sumatra, on examining it they "found much deceit; in some bags were small bags of paddy, in some rice, and in some great stones; also rotten and wet pepper put into new dry sacks."
Many of his men died, most were smitten with scurvy, he himself was dangerously ill; and the ship, in a very helpless state, unable by foul winds to reach Milford Haven, anchored at Waterford on 13 September 1613, and a month later arrived in the Downs.
Each subsidiary vessel also carried one of the Company's principal factors; William Edwards on the Hector, Nicholas Ensworth (or Emsworth) on the Hope and Thomas Elkington on the Solomon.
It amounted to six large galleons, besides several smaller vessels, and sixty so-called frigates, in reality row-boats, carrying in all 134 guns, and manned by 2,600 Europeans and six thousand natives.
In addition to the four ships just arrived with Downton, two of which were small compared with the Portuguese galleons, the English had only three or four country vessels known as galivats, and their men numbered at the outside under six hundred.
The Portuguese did not venture to force the northern entrance to the channel, which they must have approached singly, and the attack was thus limited to the smaller vessels and the frigates, which crossed the shoal and swarmed round the Hope, the smallest of Downton's four ships, stationed for her better security at the southern end of the line.
After a severe fight their men were beaten back, and, unable to withstand the storm of shot now rained on them, they set fire to their ships and jumped overboard.
The Hope was for a time in great danger; the fire caught her mainsail and spread to her mainmast, which was destroyed; but she succeeded in extinguishing it and in casting off the blazing vessels, when they drifted on to the sands, and burnt harmlessly to the water's edge.
[5] The victory enormously increased English influence, and on 25 February the nawab came down to the shore in state, was visited by Downton attended by a guard of honour of 140 men under arms, and accompanied him to the ship.
Of Downton's family nothing seems to be known, except that he had one only son, George, who accompanied him in both voyages, and died at Surat on 3 February 1614–15, while they were hourly expecting the renewal of the Portuguese attack, and when, as the general touchingly noted in his journal, "I had least leisure to mourn."