Page 144 - Early English Adventurers in the Middle East_Neat

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144 EARLY ENGLISH ADVENTURERS IN THE EAST
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following upon them. These official records must have
been a sort of Oriental Hansard and quite harmless, if not
useful, but Roe, whose notions were drawn from the era
of England’s history when the reporting of the proceedings
i of Parliament was a high crime and misdemeanour, was
shocked at the idea that the report of the day’s durbar
discussions could be purchased for two shillings, and that
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“ the common base people ” should “ know as much as
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! the Council of the newes of the day,” with the result that
“ the King’s new resolutions were tossed and censured by
every rascall.”
All the time that Roe was thus basking in the sun of
imperial favour the question of the treaty was progressing
but slowly. Asaf Khan, while making a pretence of exam­ ■
ining the questions at issue, took good care that nothing
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should be done to give the foreigner a foothold in the
country. His attitude was not entirely the outcome of
self interest or even of prejudice. The treaty for which
Roe asked was an instrument at that time not only quite
unfamiliar to the Mogul government, but in direct oppo­
sition to its traditions. The theory upon which its des­
potic power was built was that the Emperor was so superior
! a being that he could not be bound by engagements of a
permanent character. What he felt at liberty to give he
must be free to take away if it pleased him so to do.
Viewed from this standpoint the constant changes of
V policy of which the English in the early days of their ap­
pearance in India were the victims become intelligible. The
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Mogul’s apparent vacillation was not the mere working
of an unstable mind, but the outcome of a policy deliber­
ately and consistently applied as an essential part of the '
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state system.
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