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HISTORY OF THE INDIAN NAVY. 49
<:r;2Crtptain Alexander Harailtob^ in his "New Account of the
East Indies," where he"5eTve'di5etween the years 1688 and 1723,
says of this action : — •' One season the English had eight good
large ships riding at Swally, which is about ten miles from
Rannier, wliere the President and his Council then resided ;* and
Swally was the place where all goods were unladed from the
shipping, and all goods for exportation were then shipp'd off.
The Portuguese thinking it a fit time to give a deadly blow to
the English commerce, came with a fleet of six large ships, ten
small, and ten or twelve large gallies, and anchored to the north-
ward of the English, in a narrow channel, not musket shot
wide, and a tide generally of six or seven miles an hour.
The Portuguese landed near three thousand men, and
seized some carts laden with the Company's goods. The
English could not bear the insults they daily received, held
a council, wherein it was resolved to land eight hundred
men out of the ships and attack the Portuguese, while
they were lulled in security of their own strength and numbers,
and if they were overpowered, that those left on board the
English should try if they could cut a Portuguese ship's cables
that lay near them, and her driving on board of another, might,'
• with the force of the tide, put them all aground on the shore,
or a sand bank that they lay very near to. Accordingly, by
break of day, the English were all landed, and every ship's crew
led by their own commander. As they had conjectured, so it
fell out, the English were among the Portuguese before they
could get in a posture of defence, and put them in confusion.
Those on board had done as they were ordered, one being cut

* According to Hamilton, the present city of Surat had no existence at this
—
time, there being a neighbouring place called Rannier. He says : " Surat was
built about the year 1(J60, ou the banks of tlie river Tapta, or Tappee, which
being incommoded with banks of sand at Rannier, the then mart town on this
river, the English removed about two miles further down the river, on the oppo-
site side, near a castle which had been built many years before, to secure tlie
trade from the insults of the Malabar pirates, wlio used to lord it over all tlie
sea coast between Cape Comerin and Cambay. In a little time after tlie English
had settled there, otliers followed their example, so tliat in a few years it became
a large town, but without walls, and so it continued till about the aforesaid year,
that Rajah Sevajee, who had never submitted to the Mogul's domination, came
with an army and plundered it, except the European factories, who stood on
their guard. Them he complimented with the proffer of his friendship, because
perhaps he apprehended that he could not plunder them without bloodshed and
loss of time. However he carried away a very great booty, wliich made tlie in-
habitants petition Aurengzeb to secure them for the future by a wall round tlieir
town, which favour he granted, enclosing about four miles to build tlieir city in ;
but trade increasing, the town was too small within the walls to contain the
people that came about commerce, therefore several large suburbs were added to
the city for the convcniency of mechanieks. The wall was built of brick, about
eight yards high, with round bastions, two liundred paces distant from one an-
other, and each had five or six cannon mounted on them. And the rich men of
the town built many sumnier-liouses in the fields, and planted gardens about
them, to solace themselves and families in the heat, which was pretty violent in
April, May, and June."
VOL. I. E