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HISTORY OF THE INDIAN NAVY. 17 :

and officered by volunteers from the Company's ships, who
traded as well as fought. The Service was very popuhir. This
force, which from the character of the vessels, was long known
as the " grab service," was employed for the purposes of aftbrd-
ing protection to the Company's trade in the Rivers Taptee and
Nerbudda, and in the Gulf of Cambay ; and for the convoying,
and also the carrying, of goods within the same limits. The
Service was not long organised before it had an opportunity of
proving its metal, and it is gratifying to add that its first action
was a signal victory.
The Portuguese had become so arrogant and overbearing, that
they openly quarrelled with the Mogul sovereign, an event
favourable to the Company, who at once made common cause
with the Emperor .Jehangire. Since the departure of Captain
Best's squadron, a period of two years and eight months, none
of the Company's ships from England had made th(nr appear-
ance at Surat; but, on the 12th of October, 1614, a fleet of
four ships was sighted off the factory, commanded by Captain
Nicholas Downton, who had been one of Sir Henry Mlddleton's
captains. These ships, named the 'New Year's Gift,' 'Hector,'
'Merchant's Hope,' and 'Solomon,' were respectively of (i50, 500,
300 and 200 tons, with crews amounting in the aggregate to six
hundred men, of whom many were sick. They had left England
on the 11th of March, and had learned off" Socotra of Captain
Best's successes, and of the firman he had thereby secured from
the Mogul Emperor. On his arrival, Downton was first of all
saluted with the intelligence that the Portuguese Viceroy ofGoa
was determined to attack his small squadron with all the ships
he could collect, which was not unacceptable news to a man of
the temper of the gallant officer. Jehangire was only too glad
to have the assistance of such doughty allies, for his ships and
commerce were absolutely at the mercy of the Portuguese navy ;
and, powerful as he was on land, he was helpless on the sea.
On the 9th of December, the son of Mocrib Khan, the principal
Mogul general and Nabob,* met Captain Downton on the strand
at Swally, and cemented the alliance between the two Powers
and, four days later, appeared in sight the Portuguese fieet of
twenty-two " frigates," which passed unmolested, although
cxcoeding seventy tons. They hare two masts, of wliieli tlie niizen is very slight,
tlie main-mast bears only one sail, which is triangular and very large, the ]->eak of
it when hoisted being much higher than the mast itself. In general the galivats
cire covered with a sjjar deck, made for lightness of split bamboos, and these carry
only ' petteraroes,' which are fixed on swivels in the gunwale of the vessel ; but
those of the larger size have a fixed deck on which the^' mount six or eight pieces
of cannon, from two to four-pounders ; they have forty to fifty stout oars, and
may be rowed four miles an hour."—Ormc's " History of Hindoostan," Vol. I.,
page 408.
* The word Nabob is a corruption of Nawaub, which, again, is derived from
Nayib, and means " dcjnity ;" he was an officer of lower rank than the Soubahdar,
who was the Mogul Emperor's viceroy.
VOL. I. C