Page 116 - Early English Adventurers in the Middle East_Neat

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CHAPTER VIII
English and Portuguese Rivalry

Unfavourable English prospects in India—Thomas Best conducts a
fleet to India—Is attacked by the Portuguese—Defeat of the
Portuguese with great loss—Mogul authorities grant a firman
to trade at Surat—Mogul Government declares war on the [
Portuguese—Downton arrives off Surat with a fleet—Is at­
tacked in Swally roads by the Portuguese—He beats off his
assailants—The Rev. Peter Rogers attacks Downton—Death
of Downton—His patriotic virtues
.
^T^HOUGH the servants of the East India Company
A were for a time disposed to dissipate their energies
in a vain endeavour to break down the barrier of Moham­
medan fanaticism and obstructiveness in the Red Sea,
; .
they at the same time displayed a splendid prescience in
holding on to their project for opening a trade with India
through Surat. Neither Mogul intrigues nor Portuguese
hostility served to turn them from their purpose. With
!
possibly a vague consciousness of the mighty issues which
depended on their successful action they returned again
and again to the charge with increased determination to
effect a permanent lodgment on Indian soil. The fates
so far had not been propitious. There was, indeed, at the
point at which we have arrived, substantial reason for
abandoning as hopeless the purpose in view. Hawkins
had left the country on Middleton’s ship, discredited and
humiliated; the Emperor, if not hostile to the English,
was little disposed to favour them ; the Surat authorities
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