Page 268 - Early English Adventurers in the Middle East_Neat

268 EARLY ENGLISH ADVENTURERS IN THE EAST

in possession of the island than he set about fortifying the
position as best he could to ward off any attack by a raiding
force. That there was* urgent necessity for defensive
measures was made clear by every boat that came into port.
The Dutch, flushed with their successes against the Portu­
guese, were throughout the Indian Ocean carrying things
with a strong hand, and they made a special boast that when
the opportunity offered they would wipe out the newly-
formed English settlement.
The blow, though anticipated with apprehensive feel­
ings by Oxenden and his fellows at Surat, never fell. It
is not easy to understand why the Hollanders held their
hand. They had both in 1665 and 1666 powerful fleets at
Surat and could have made short work of the small garri­
son of about one hundred men which Cooke had under his
charge if they had gone seriously into the business. The
advantages to them of the possession of Bombay at the
time would have been enormous. The occupation of the
place would have ensured the downfall of Goa and have
completed a chain of stations which would have stretched
from the northern confines of the Indian Ocean to the Far
East. It would also probably have turned the scale so
markedly in favour of Dutch supremacy that the English
could never have secured a substantial foothold in India. )
But Providence ordained matters otherwise, and so this
little handful of men, lodged in the ruins of the old Portu­
guese town at Bombay, became a nucleus around which
gathered in due course a flourishing settlement, the pro"
genitor of mighty interests on the adjacent continent of
India.
Charles II, who had never been greatly interested in the
Eastern portion of the dower of his unhappy bride, in March,
i