Page 311 - Early English Adventurers in the Middle East_Neat

THE ADVENTURERS AND THEIR TIMES 311

the staff was a small one. Some of the appointments, like
that of the Rev. Peter Rogers, the first of the regular chap­
lains, whose vagaries have already been referred to, were
not happy. But on the other hand there were amongst
these early clerical representatives men who were in every
way a credit to their cloth. In this category deservedly
may be included the Rev. Patrick Copeland, who went
out to India a year or two after Rogers. He is described
in a letter to the directors of the period by one of its prin­
cipal agents in India as one “ whose virtuous life suiting
so well with his sound doctrine is a means of bringing men
unto God.” Not the least of Copeland’s claims to a place
in the early history of the English in the East is that he
made the first Indian convert that the Anglican Church
can claim. This was a Bengali youth whose acquaintance
Copeland formed in the course of his travels. The lad was
taken to England by his patron and publicly baptized at :
the Church of St. Dionis, Backchurch, Fenchurch Street,
on December 22, 1616, in the name of Peter, to which,
according to some accounts, King James added the sur­
name of Pope. Subsequently the Indian Peter returned
to his native land, to drop once more into obscurity. Cope­
land, whose later career was spent in the West Indies,
died in the Bermudas.
The ordinary life of the Eastern factories ran on rather
rigid lines. Usually the day commenced with prayers
at 6 a.m. Afterwards was a light informal breakfast,
analogous to the cliota hazri, or “ little breakfast ” of
the Anglo-Indian of to-day. At midday was the dinner,
a substantial meal to which the members of the establish- '
ment sat down in the strict order of precedence, the chief
agent and the members of his council at a top table, and