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Authors: Tirthankar Roy
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ship they could lay their hands on and sent these off in search of spices. Unlike the English who travelled along the Cape route made dangerous by the Portuguese, some of the Dutch ships took the safer but longer route via the Strait of Magellan to reach South Pacific. The Company found it hard to engage with and overcome Dutch resistance in the western Pacific. It began, therefore, to think of a more indirect strategy of procuring the spices.
All the rival Western European powers trying to procure Indonesian spices understood the critical role of India in making the spice trade possible. The commodity that sold best in Southeast Asia was Indian cotton cloth. Further, spice-laden ships needed to call in at Indian ports to restock food and repair ships. It was, therefore, essential to establish a partnership between India and the trading stations further east. For the English, Bantam needed a partner in India. Surat was the obvious choice for its strategic location and existing reputation as the leading entrepôt in the subcontinent. The difficulty was that Surat was firmly a part of the Mughal empire.
Mission to India
FROM THE VERY inception of the Company, the directors understood the strategic need to establish contact with what they called the Court of the Grand Mogul. Trade and its protection against all adversaries were essential to the success of the whole enterprise and this could not be ensured only by armed engagement. The Dutch, the early comers, adopted mainly military means, with a dose of judicious bribing, to establish a foothold in India. The English began in the same fashion, but went further than the Dutch in establishing diplomatic relations with Indian rulers.
John Mildenhall and William Hawkins
A year before the Company was incorporated, a mission sponsored by the court and headed by a merchant, JohnMildenhall, came to Agra. Mildenhall travelled over land, arriving there in 1603. He was courteously received, and was offered a formal but useless license to trade. The Portuguese and the Jesuits in Akbar’s court conspired to scuttle his mission. In the bargain, Mildenhall learnt Persian, and when he returned to England in 1608, was appointed by the Levant Company to represent them in Persia. His last years ended in controversy. For some time, the Company lost contact with him and suspected him to be a Persian spy. During this time, he married a Persian woman and had two children by her. The Company agents caught up with him again in Punjab. He died in Ajmer, declaring a Frenchman, from whom he had extracted a promise to marry his daughter, the executor of his estate. The prospective son-in-law promptly burned all of Mildenhall’s account books, destroying any evidence that could redeem his reputation or otherwise.
In August 1608 a fleet commanded by the merchant and sea captain William Hawkins, possibly the same Hawkins who as a boy had accompanied Drake in 1577 to the Atlantic, reached Surat, hoping to make contact with the Mughal governor. The Portuguese tried to stop him, even though England and Portugal were at that moment at peace. When Hawkins finally managed to establish links with the governor Makarrab Khan,much of his resources were dissipated in making gifts, without any serious purpose being achieved. Since the governor’s writ did not run very far from the borders of the town, Hawkins took the desperate decision to travel to Agra over land. He gathered a retinue of Pathan horsemen, dressed up as an Afghan nobleman, and reached Agra in 1609.
Unknown to the party, Emperor Jahangir had kept himself informed of its progress. An audience was quickly arranged, and was immediately successful. The emperor listened patiently to a translation of the letter from the English king James I, received the mandatory assortment of gifts, commented on his guest’s good looks, and was delighted to find that they shared a knowledge of Arabic, in which they conversed from then on. The English were issued a
All the rival Western European powers trying to procure Indonesian spices understood the critical role of India in making the spice trade possible. The commodity that sold best in Southeast Asia was Indian cotton cloth. Further, spice-laden ships needed to call in at Indian ports to restock food and repair ships. It was, therefore, essential to establish a partnership between India and the trading stations further east. For the English, Bantam needed a partner in India. Surat was the obvious choice for its strategic location and existing reputation as the leading entrepôt in the subcontinent. The difficulty was that Surat was firmly a part of the Mughal empire.
Mission to India
FROM THE VERY inception of the Company, the directors understood the strategic need to establish contact with what they called the Court of the Grand Mogul. Trade and its protection against all adversaries were essential to the success of the whole enterprise and this could not be ensured only by armed engagement. The Dutch, the early comers, adopted mainly military means, with a dose of judicious bribing, to establish a foothold in India. The English began in the same fashion, but went further than the Dutch in establishing diplomatic relations with Indian rulers.
John Mildenhall and William Hawkins
A year before the Company was incorporated, a mission sponsored by the court and headed by a merchant, JohnMildenhall, came to Agra. Mildenhall travelled over land, arriving there in 1603. He was courteously received, and was offered a formal but useless license to trade. The Portuguese and the Jesuits in Akbar’s court conspired to scuttle his mission. In the bargain, Mildenhall learnt Persian, and when he returned to England in 1608, was appointed by the Levant Company to represent them in Persia. His last years ended in controversy. For some time, the Company lost contact with him and suspected him to be a Persian spy. During this time, he married a Persian woman and had two children by her. The Company agents caught up with him again in Punjab. He died in Ajmer, declaring a Frenchman, from whom he had extracted a promise to marry his daughter, the executor of his estate. The prospective son-in-law promptly burned all of Mildenhall’s account books, destroying any evidence that could redeem his reputation or otherwise.
In August 1608 a fleet commanded by the merchant and sea captain William Hawkins, possibly the same Hawkins who as a boy had accompanied Drake in 1577 to the Atlantic, reached Surat, hoping to make contact with the Mughal governor. The Portuguese tried to stop him, even though England and Portugal were at that moment at peace. When Hawkins finally managed to establish links with the governor Makarrab Khan,much of his resources were dissipated in making gifts, without any serious purpose being achieved. Since the governor’s writ did not run very far from the borders of the town, Hawkins took the desperate decision to travel to Agra over land. He gathered a retinue of Pathan horsemen, dressed up as an Afghan nobleman, and reached Agra in 1609.
Unknown to the party, Emperor Jahangir had kept himself informed of its progress. An audience was quickly arranged, and was immediately successful. The emperor listened patiently to a translation of the letter from the English king James I, received the mandatory assortment of gifts, commented on his guest’s good looks, and was delighted to find that they shared a knowledge of Arabic, in which they conversed from then on. The English were issued a
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