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HISTORY OF THE INDIAN NAVr. 23
boat to the three other ships, to give his instructions ; but
during his absence the flood set in, when his own ship, which
carried his flag as Admiral, fell astern of the others. At this
time the Viceroy's galleon, sailing well, was far ahead of the
rest of his fleet and near enough to have brought Downton to
action. The Portuguese guinier, says Orme, proposed to sink
the ' Hope' with the two 42-pounders, which seem to have been
the pride of the armada ; but the officers warned him that the
English Admiral had fallen astern with no other intention than
to tempt the Viceroy to the trial, when the three other ships
would bear down and overwhelm him. Acting upon this dis-
creet advice, he hauled his wind towards the shore, was followed
by his fleet, and all were soon out of sight, when the English
ships continued their course.* When the Viceroy was after-
wards arraigned for various crimes perpetrated during his
government, his conduct on this day was one of the articles of
accusation, and the ver}^ hidalgos, in deference to whose opinion
he had refrained from the attack, bore witness against him.
The English ships proceeded down the coast, and, on the lOth
of the month, the ' Hope ' was despatched to England ; the
other three doubled Cape Comorin on the 19tli, and arrived on
the 2nd of June at Batavia, where Captain Downton died on
the 6th of August, as Orme well adds, " lamented, admired,
and unequalled."t
In this affair the Portuguese lost three hundred and fifty
men; and, says Mill, "the splendid achievements of the
English against an enemy whom the Governments of India
were ill able to resist, raised high their reputation for prowess
in war." On the other hand, the Mogul fleet took little or no
part in the action.
The Emperor Jehangirc had already received a request that
the English might be permitted to fortify their factory at
Surat, which he had referred to his minister, Mocrib Khan,
through whom the original firman for trade had been obtained
but there appeared to be no desire to grant the boon, which
must have appeared, and rightly, the thin end of the wedge
that was to make the Company a territorial power. Mr.
Edwardes—the Company's factor at Ahmedabad, who, with
Mr. Kerridge, the agent at Surat, may be regarded as the first
representatives of the Company in India — proceeded to Agra,
and was presented to the P^mperor, on the 7th of Eebruary, by
Asaph Khan, brother of the Empress Noor Mahal, so celebrated
in Indian history for her beauty and goodness. During his stay,
after the arrival of the news of the Portuguese defeat at Swally,
* Faria De Sonza says that the English ships made their acknowledgments to
the Viceroy for this resolution of not fighting them, by a salute of blank cartridge
as an ironical compliment.
t Orme's " Oriental Fragments," pp. 3-lG to 35G.