Page 2 - Anglo Portuguese Rivalry in The Gulf_Neat

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7 propose to deal with it more from the point of view of
Chapter III.
Anglo-Portuguese Rivalry in the Persian Gulf,
1615-1635.
Some explanation is perhaps needed as to why this
particular -subject should have been selected as the
1 topic for this paper. When Professor Prestage asked
El
me to contribute something on the Asiatic aspect of
■
! Anglo-Portuguese relations, I rather unthinkingly
\
accepted the proposal, without having any precise idea
i of what subject to choose. In actual fact, the field
of choice is more limited than might be supposed, for
after the first armed clashes between the two nations in
the Indian seas were over, the story of their mutual
i! relations is mainly a hum-drum and uneventful one ;
the almost unbroken peace which prevailed between
1
them after the treaty of 1635, being marred only by
a few scuffles in the vicinity of Bombay Harbour, or by
an acrimonious exchange of notes over the vexed
question of the delimitation of the boundary lands and
i islands near Bombay and Bassein. The more obvious
! aspects of Anglo-Portuguese relations in the East, such
as the acquisition of Bombay in 1661-1665, or the rather
sorry part played by the English iti the disastrous
i
Mahratta war against the Portuguese in 1737-1741, have
i already been dealt with adequately by more than one
1
competent historian. Nor for that matter has the
story of Anglo-Portuguese rivalry in the Persian Gulf
■ 46
!
;
.
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been unduly neglected, but the tale has been told
almost entirely from the English side, whereas I
the men “ on the other side of the hill.” Fortunately
the telling of it is enlivened by more than one stirring
incident, for that element of romance which seems to
be inseparable from the early Stuart adventurers is
equally to be found in their Lusitanian opponents; so
that the story of their rivalry is something more than a
mere echo of “ old, unhappy, far-off things and battles
long ago.”
It may be as well to state here briefly, the principal
sources on which this paper is based. There is no lack
of material, whether printed or manuscript, on the
English side, and to all intents and purposes the
student will find everything he wants to know printed
in two works, both of them exemplary monuments of
patient research. I refer to Samuel Purchas’ Pilgrimes,
of which the best edition is that originally published at
London in 1625 (reprinted, Glasgow, 1905) and to Sir
.William Foster’s series on The English Factories in India
of which the relevant volumes are the five covering the
years 1618-1636, printed at Oxford, 1906-1911. To
these may be added Mr. Noel Sainsbury’s painstaking
compilation of the Calendar of State Papers, Colonial
Series, East Indies, for the years 1615-1634 (London,
1862-1892), though this work has been largely super­
seded by Sir William Foster’s scholarly volumes.
On the Portuguese side, we have nothing to compare
in fullness and accuracy with the English sources. The
Documentos remettidos da India or Books of the Monsoons,
published by the Lisbon Academy of Sciences in four
volumes (Lisboa, 1880-1893) cover the second decade
of the seventeenth century, but are not nearly so
helpful as might be expected. The series contains all
the letters from the home authorities to the Indian
47