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The Formosan "royalty" wasn't actually royalty. Edward Spratt, being a typical old white man from 19th century England that he was, assumed they're some sort of royalty because they dressed nicely and had a few guards and he most definitely didn't speak their language anyway. Bun-Lan Lim came from a once-wealthy-and-sophisticated merchant family that had deteriorated over time, leaving only her as the only heiress plus a few servants. It's the reason why they couldn't have gone on the trip with like several more people or just use their own merchant ship.

The chest and shells are Bun-Lan Lim's family heirloom for centuries and they're intending to put it for trading it at Cape of Good Hope as a last resort to salvage the family. Bun-Lan Lim was the only person who actually knew the origin of the shells and the monsters and how they worked. All three other Formosans were her servants and the only knowledge they posessed were something vague like "super dangerous magical stuff that if handled wrongly would cause calamities".

Volkov was left out of the mutiny plan because Toporov and Nikishin were still salty he cheated at cards.

Hoscut was the tallest of four mates and taller than Witterel. Nichols was the shortest of the mates.

Davies was an orphan (saw this in a fic I was like, you know what, sure, I'll take it) but it's nearly impossible for you to make it as an officer if you're not from the 'gentlemen' class so I guess at some point he discovered he's heir to some rich noble family Oliver Twist-style. Or he just grinded really hard at his job to get promoted.

Witterel had known the Hoscuts since childhood.

George Shirley knew a bit of whatever the version of Mandarin they spoke in the 19th century. After getting along with the Chinese topmen for some time he started picking up some phrases and sentences from them and could hold small basic conversations with them fluently.

Emily Jackson killed Volkov out of revenge for Paul Moss rather than self-defense.

Samuel was Nathan's older brother (this is at least canon in the Japanese localization, I wonder how that goes for other languages that don't have an age-ambiguous word for brother).