Read Online The East India Company: The World's Most Powerful Corporation (The Story of Indian Business) by Tirthankar Roy - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Tirthankar Roy
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license to build a factory at Surat. So eager was Jahangir to display his affection for his new found friend that he was not satisfied with granting him a mere license. He conferred on Hawkins the title of 400-horse mansabdar (an entitlement to command soldiers), and found for him an Armenian girl to marry.
Hawkins’ letters to his superiors during his stay in Agra painted the picture of an alcoholic despot suffering from violent mood swings. Whether Jahangir came to know about these missives or Makarrab Khan and thePortuguese poisoned his mind, he tired of Hawkins as quickly as he had grown fond of him. Although an English factory in name continued in Surat, Hawkins himself had to leave in 1611 on a ship bound for Bantam.
Another Company mission to India happened by accident. The real objective of this expedition, the sixth fleet sent out by the Company, was to establish trading rights and a foothold in Aden, then under the charge of a governor of the Ottomans. The mission ended in a battle, and the commander Henry Middleton found himself a hostage of the Aga. Upon his escape, he recovered near Dabhol and Surat, to the annoyance of the Portuguese. His stay on the coast, however, did not lead to anything further, for Middleton was bent upon revenge and returned to Aden. Disagreements in his ranks saw these moves fail too. Not one to give up, he made a trip to Bantam to pick up Hawkins to join hands with him. Unfortunately, Hawkins died on the voyage of an epidemic disease that swept through the ship. Middleton died in 1611 in the knowledge of a mission blighted by ill luck and bad judgement.
As for Hawkins’s widow, she returned to England, remarried a mariner, possibly the famous Gabriel Towerson who was executed by the Dutch in Amboyna in 1623, and was last seen in Surat haranguing the English for a suitable pension.
Thomas Best and Nicholas Downton
Two further voyages to Surat were hardly more consequential in meeting the main aims of the English. Thomas Best, a forty-year-old sea captain with experience of commanding ships to Russia and the Levant, was appointed head of the tenth fleet in December 1611. Three weeks after anchoring at Surat, Best was attacked by a strong Portuguese force. The two battles that ensued saw Best score a complete victory, and earned him the Mughal emperor’s permission to allow the English right to trade.
On the second occasion, Nicholas Downton, who had earlier commanded the disastrous sixth fleet, was chosen to command a voyage in 1614, which went to Surat to secure a trading operation there. A fleet led by the viceroy of Goa, Jeronimo de Azevedo, arrived to drive out the English. The English were vastly outnumbered, but proved to be better gunners. Having lost 500 of his men, whereas the English lost only five, Don Jeronimo gave up the fight and returned to Goa. This battle more or less marked the end of Portuguese power on the western seaboard. The relationship between the Mughal agents and the Portuguese had already soured, and the outcome of these battles, keenly followed from the shore, was welcomed by the former. Downton received the now customary letter from Agrapromising unrestricted freedom to trade. His own health, however, had suffered and he died soon after in Bantam.
By 1612, a small band of English traders were manning an English trading outpost in Surat. Thomas Kerridge, the first chief of the outpost, stated in his reports that sword-blades, knives, broadcloth, lead and quicksilver found a ready market in Surat. In turn he was buying indigo, medicinal substances, cotton yarn, especially calico, the plain white cotton cloth that found ready market in Southeast Asia. Kerridge instructed his principals to send English bulldogs, which made an excellent gift for the Indian kings. Earlier, in 1609 or 1610, one Mr Aldworth of the factory journeyed by road to Ahmedabad, passing on his way Boroatch (Bharuch) and Bothra (Vadodara). He had reported that excellent and cheap
Hawkins’ letters to his superiors during his stay in Agra painted the picture of an alcoholic despot suffering from violent mood swings. Whether Jahangir came to know about these missives or Makarrab Khan and thePortuguese poisoned his mind, he tired of Hawkins as quickly as he had grown fond of him. Although an English factory in name continued in Surat, Hawkins himself had to leave in 1611 on a ship bound for Bantam.
Another Company mission to India happened by accident. The real objective of this expedition, the sixth fleet sent out by the Company, was to establish trading rights and a foothold in Aden, then under the charge of a governor of the Ottomans. The mission ended in a battle, and the commander Henry Middleton found himself a hostage of the Aga. Upon his escape, he recovered near Dabhol and Surat, to the annoyance of the Portuguese. His stay on the coast, however, did not lead to anything further, for Middleton was bent upon revenge and returned to Aden. Disagreements in his ranks saw these moves fail too. Not one to give up, he made a trip to Bantam to pick up Hawkins to join hands with him. Unfortunately, Hawkins died on the voyage of an epidemic disease that swept through the ship. Middleton died in 1611 in the knowledge of a mission blighted by ill luck and bad judgement.
As for Hawkins’s widow, she returned to England, remarried a mariner, possibly the famous Gabriel Towerson who was executed by the Dutch in Amboyna in 1623, and was last seen in Surat haranguing the English for a suitable pension.
Thomas Best and Nicholas Downton
Two further voyages to Surat were hardly more consequential in meeting the main aims of the English. Thomas Best, a forty-year-old sea captain with experience of commanding ships to Russia and the Levant, was appointed head of the tenth fleet in December 1611. Three weeks after anchoring at Surat, Best was attacked by a strong Portuguese force. The two battles that ensued saw Best score a complete victory, and earned him the Mughal emperor’s permission to allow the English right to trade.
On the second occasion, Nicholas Downton, who had earlier commanded the disastrous sixth fleet, was chosen to command a voyage in 1614, which went to Surat to secure a trading operation there. A fleet led by the viceroy of Goa, Jeronimo de Azevedo, arrived to drive out the English. The English were vastly outnumbered, but proved to be better gunners. Having lost 500 of his men, whereas the English lost only five, Don Jeronimo gave up the fight and returned to Goa. This battle more or less marked the end of Portuguese power on the western seaboard. The relationship between the Mughal agents and the Portuguese had already soured, and the outcome of these battles, keenly followed from the shore, was welcomed by the former. Downton received the now customary letter from Agrapromising unrestricted freedom to trade. His own health, however, had suffered and he died soon after in Bantam.
By 1612, a small band of English traders were manning an English trading outpost in Surat. Thomas Kerridge, the first chief of the outpost, stated in his reports that sword-blades, knives, broadcloth, lead and quicksilver found a ready market in Surat. In turn he was buying indigo, medicinal substances, cotton yarn, especially calico, the plain white cotton cloth that found ready market in Southeast Asia. Kerridge instructed his principals to send English bulldogs, which made an excellent gift for the Indian kings. Earlier, in 1609 or 1610, one Mr Aldworth of the factory journeyed by road to Ahmedabad, passing on his way Boroatch (Bharuch) and Bothra (Vadodara). He had reported that excellent and cheap
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