Page 82 - Early English Adventurers in the Middle East_Neat

■p

82 EARLY ENGLISH ADVENTURERS IN THE EAST

interested in his visitor that on dismissing him at the close
of the audience he commanded that he should be in daily-
attendance at his Court.
Hawkins’ position was now assured. He advanced from
honour to honour with a rapidity only possible in an
Oriental court. At length some weeks after the arrival
of the mission Jehangir made him a definite proposal with
a view of securing his services permanently. The im­
perial offer was a licence for a factory at Surat for the
Company, and for Hawkins personally an allowance of
£3,200 a year, with the command of 400 horse. The sug­
gestion was too tempting to be put aside by one in the
! position of Hawkins. As he quaintly put it to the Com­
pany, while another would easily take the place tentatively
assigned to him at Bantam he would be so situated that
“I should feather my nest and doe you service.” He
therefore closed with the proposal, and from the role of
■envoy made an easy transition to that of personal attendant
•on the Emperor. In his new office he was intimately
.associated with Jehangir not only in the ceremonial duties
•of the daily durbar, where he occupied a position among
the nobles in the little railed enclosure reserved for them,
.but in the nightly wassails in the inner recesses of the
palace, at which the imperial debauchee unbent in extra­
ordinary fashion.
i
It was probably at one of these symposiums that Jehan­
!
gir took it into his head to confer upon Hawkins a wife.
! The story, as told by the erstwhile envoy in his record of
his life at Agra, is that the Emperor one day was “ very
earnest ” with him “ to take a white maiden out of his
palace,” promising that “ he would give her all things
necessary with slaves,” and offering as an additional

L