Page 89 - Early English Adventurers in the Middle East_Neat

HOW THE ENGLISH WENT TO INDIA 89

The favour of a tyrant so capricious as Jehangir showed
himself to be was a slender reed on which an isolated
Englishman could lean at that juncture, and the day came
when Hawkins discovered that the intrigues of Makarrab
Khan and of his close associates, the Portuguese, were
having effect on the imperial mind to his disadvantage.
He strove manfully to resist the insidious influences and,
for a time, seemed to have conquered, but at length “ the
King went again from his word, esteeming a few toys
which the fathers had promised him more than his honour.”
Hawkins made yet another effort to obtain the licence to
trade for the Company, which was the bone of contention,
but Jehangir informed him that he had finally decided to
withhold it.
“ Thus,” says Hawkins, “ was I tossed and tumbled in
the kind of a rich merchant adventuring all he had in one
bottom, and by casualtie of stormes or pirates lost it all at
once.”
The rebuff here administered was the beginning of the
end. Presently, Hawkins was told that he was not to
enter within the red rails where he had stood near the
Emperor during the two years of his service. The intima­
tion was a hint not to be disregarded with impunity. He
commenced to make preparations for departure. Eds
first thought was to obtain a safe conduct to Goa for him­
self and his wife, but he was spared the humiliation of
making an application in this quarter by the news which
reached Agra at the juncture of the arrival of three English
ships under Sir Henry Middleton at Surat. Without loss
of time he made his way to the coast and was soon once
more, to his great joy, on the deck of an English ship.
Hawkins’ subsequent career belongs to a somewhat

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