Page 261 - Early English Adventurers in the Middle East_Neat

THE ENGLISH SECURE A FOOTHOLD IN INDIA 261

“ Ah ! ” replied the ruffian, “ you would like to die a noble­
man’s death, you dog! ” Food was now withheld, and
Van der Berg had to live on the fish-bones and other gar­
bage which he found on the floor of his cell. He ultimately
managed to escape from his life in death. Apart from
the record of the writer’s own sufferings, Van der Berg’s
diary throws a lurid fight on the relations of the Portuguese
and the Dutch. Here is one striking passage: “ I will
write you what an Englishman told me on oath, that they
cut the nose and ears of some Dutchmen and then drowned
them: yea, some of them were flayed before they were
drowned and died as martyrs through the Inquisition.”
It is in these and similar chronicles of horror of the period
that we may look for the explanation of the ruthlessness
with which the Dutch carried on the war against
Portugal.
English and Dutch co-operation, on an extensive scale
at all events, ended with the expedition of 1626. After
this each fought the Portuguese in its own way. The
Dutch sent an annual fleet to blockade Goa; the English
offered a sturdy resistance at Surat. In the latter case?
the operations were facilitated by the grant of a firman
by the Emperor, authorizing the English to wage war on
the Portuguese in Mogul territory if necessary. Acting
on this permit, a body of men from the English ships was
landed on the shore near Swally and made a successful
attack on a Portuguese force encountered in the vicinity.
As the first fight in which an organized body of English­
: men was concerned in India, this skirmish, amid the sand­
hills of the Guzerat coast, has an historic significance. In
its immediate influence on the relations of the two races,
it was also not devoid of importance, for the contest
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