Page 5 - Anglo Portuguese Rivalry in The Gulf_Neat

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So much for the principal English and Portuguese
sources, but it must not be forgotten that it is often
the looker-on who sees most of the game. An
interested onlooker, and at times active participant,
was the “ insolent Hollander ” as his jealous English
rivals often dubbed him, and it is from Dutch accounts
that we can glean many facts which passed unnoticed,
or were glossed over, by the parties directly concerned.
For instance, a good deal of material is to be found in
some of the journals printed in volume II of the
Begin ende Voortgangh der Vereenighde Oost-Indische
Compagnie, published at Amsterdam in 1646; partic­
ularly in that of Hendrik Hagenaer who travelled in
the Gulf during the years 1632-1633. The voluminous
Dagh-Register gehouden int Casteel Batavia, the
modern publication of which (at Batavia and the Hague
1887-1912) corresponds roughly to Sir William Foster’s
English Factories in India series (albeit the former is
edited in a far less scholarly way), contains a good deal
of relevant material, although the diaries for some of
the years concerned (e.g., 1630 and 1635) are un­
fortunately missing, either in whole or in part. Mr.
A. Hotz’s scholarly edition (Levden, 1907) of the
log-book of skipper Cornelis Roobacker, who charted
a part of the Gulf during his voyage from Gombrun
to Basra in 1645, is also worth consulting ; as is Dr. H.
Terpstra’s De opkomst der Westerkw artier en van de
Oost-Indische Compagnie (The Hague, 1918)—another
careful piece of research.
An even more deeply interested party in the
spectacle of Anglo-Portuguese rivalry in the Gulf was
the Persian himself. Unfortunately, being guiltless of
any knowledge of the Iranian tongue, I cannot claim
to have translated a mass of Persian and Arabic
documents on the subject, and do not even know if
such exist. If by any chance they do, it would be
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interesting to study them for the sake of getting an
insight into their point of view; but it is improbable
that they would have much of importance to add to the
voluminous English, Portuguese and Dutch accounts.
Finally, it should not be forgotten that nothing can
quite supply the want of personal experience of the
sea or land area under discussion. Nevertheless,
although it is given to few of us to be able to travel
there, yet a good idea of the geographical and climatic
conditions obtaining in that desolate region, can be
obtained from a consultation of such sources as Sir
Arnold Wilson’s standard work on The Persian Gulf,
\ or of Admiralty charts and The Persian Gulf Pilot. It
may be added that the series of aerial photographs
published in The Times during 1934, affords us some
excellent glimpses of the forbidding nature of the
country in which Englishmen and " Portugals 99 fought
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out their quarrels three hundred years ago.
As early as 1612 the Portuguese began to take alarm
at the prospect of their English rivals opening a trade
with Persia, and thus interfering with their own ,
monopoly of sea-borne commerce in the .Gulf, which
they had held practically unchallenged for a century. l
Although the English at this .time had their hands full
at Surat, whilst subsequently King James I9s am­
bassador to the court of the Great Moghul, Sir Thomas
Roe, opposed the extension of their trade to Persia,
yet the activities of the celebrated adventurer, Robert
Sherley, aroused considerable misgivings in the minds
of the Lusitanian authorities at Lisbon and Goa.
Accordingly when Sherley returned from his mission
on behalf of Shah Abbas to the courts of London and
Madrid in 1612, the Portuguese Indiamen which
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