Page 129 - Early English Adventurers in the Middle East_Neat

ENGLISH AND PORTUGUESE RIVALRY 129

only too clear from the correspondence of the period.
He was one of a rather common type of those early Indian
chaplains who gave the authorities considerable trouble by
their inability to adapt themselves to the necessary disci­
pline of the Company’s factories. A contemporary of
Rogers, a “ preacher ” named Gouldinge, greatly disturbed
the harmony of the Indian establishment three years after
the period with which we are dealing, by his very unclerical
conduct at Surat. When a request which he had preferred
to accompany Mrs. Hawkins and her English maid—the
wife of Richard Steele—to Ahmedabad had been re­
fused, he disguised himself in “ Moor’s apparel ” and
surreptitiously joined the ship in which the ladies were
sailing. His vagaries and the attendant complications
did much to harden the hearts of the directors against the
appeals made by their servants in India to permit their
wives to join them.
Whatever feelings may have been entertained against
Downton he was soon to pass beyond the influence of his
enemies. At Surat there were signs that his health had
been seriously undermined by the hardships he had under­
gone in previous voyages. As the voyage progressed he
became feebler day by day until in the unsavoury pre­
cincts of Bantam he was stricken with mortal illness and
expired in 1615. Orme, the Indian historian, says that
he died “ lamented, admired and unequalled.” That
verdict may be accepted as the just record of posterity.
There was something very attractive about the man.
“ His disposition,” says Purchas, “ savoured the true
heroic, piety and valour being in him seasoned with gravity
and modesty.” He was essentially staunch and true,
one who made no great fuss about his actions, but who
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