Page 8 - Anglo Portuguese Rivalry in The Gulf_Neat

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with the Spaniard, or to make p< eace.with the Turk;
one of them he must do.” To most observers it
V 4 seemed that Abbas had come down on the Spanish side
1 of the fence, for when he sent Sherley on his new
1 mission to Goa and Madrid in 1615, he was provided
with fuller powers and instructions than before. In
I truth the Shah was only biding his time ; for whilst
j: Sherley was negotiating a definite treaty of alliance in
Madrid, he deliberately broke off all negotiations with
Don Garcia de Silva at Ispahan, on the pretext that
the Spanish demand for the restitution of Bahrein
and Gombrun as a sine qua non, was totally unjustified.
The real reason for his removing the mask, however* ' I
was that the appearance of English ships at Jask
; afforded him a welcome opportunity of disposing of
the silks, through other hands than those of his actual
!
or potential enemies.
!
The arrival of the English at Jask in 1616 and the
subsequent foundation of the factory there, aroused
the liveliest misgivings in the minds of the Portuguese
authorities, which the bland professions of the Shah,
or the persuasive eloquence of Robert Sherley could
by no means entirely allay. Even whilst the embassy
of Don Garcia de Silva was still treating with the Shah,
measures were being taken by the home authorities
to prepare for the worst, in the event of an agreement •
not being arrived at. It was fully realised that the
English would not tamely abandon the trade they had :
successfully begun, and; that the continuance of
Portuguese political and commercial preponderance in
the. Gulf depended entirely on the maintenance of
their supremacy at sea. It was therefore decided to
■ despatch a strong naval force from Lisbon to Ormuz in
J the fairmindedness to admit in his journal afterwards,
the spring of 1619, with the dual object of forcibly
■:
ejecting the intruding English “ corsairs,” and of
securing the fortress against a possible Persian attack.
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It is a common if natural failing of English historians,
that they tell us little or nothing about the men from
whom our ancestors had to wrest the mastery of the
seas, before they could enjoy the fruits of their “ quiet
trade ” in peace. This is hardly surprising, since so
many of the founders of our own colonial empire
(outstanding figures like Robert Clive always excepted)
have been unduly neglected, that it is only natural they
I
! should claim the first share of our attention. Of late
i
> years, however, the patient labours of Sir William
■ Foster and other investigators, have restored to their
rightful places such leading figures as Captain John
Weddel and William Methwold, so that a few words
! * about their principal opponents may not come amiss.
It is impossible to apprise the deeds of the first
Englishmen in India at their true worth, if we have no
idea of what manner of men they were, against whom
they' had to fight for “ the wealth of Ormuz and of
Ind.” It is easy to dismiss the lot of them as decadent
“ dagoes ” or priest-ridden Papists, but in doing so
we sadly under-rate the achievements of our fore­
fathers. If all the opponents of the English in India
during the seventeenth century had been as cowardly
1
and as inefficient as they are commonly made out to be,
then the foundation of our Indian Empire was neither
a particularly onerous nor honourable task. Such,
however, was not the case, and along with many
weaklings and half-castes, the ranks of the Portuguese
in India included soldiers and sailors who gave every
bit as much as they received. “ Who so cowardly as
a Portuguese ? ” asked Captain Downton sneeringly of
his men before the fight in Swalley Hole ; but he had
i
that he had never seen men fight more bravely than
those who boarded the Hope that day. There is
therefore ample reason to devote some space to a
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