Early English adventurers in the East (1917)/Chapter 8
CHAPTER VIII
English and Portuguese Rivalry
Unfavourable English prospects in India—Thomas Best conducts a fleet to India—Is attacked by the Portuguese— Defeat of the Portuguese with great loss—Mogul authorities grant a firman to trade at Surat—Mogul Government declares war on the Portuguese—Downton arrives off Surat with a fleet—Is attacked in Swally roads by the Portuguese—He beats off his assailants—The Rev. Peter Rogers attacks Downton—Death of Downton—His patriotic virtues
THOUGH the servants of the East India Company were for a time disposed to dissipate their energies in a vain endeavour to break down the barrier of Mohammedan fanaticism and obstructiveness in the Red Sea, they at the same time displayed a splendid prescience in holding on to their project for opening a trade with India through Surat. Neither Mogul intrigues nor Portuguese hostility served to turn them from their purpose. With possibly a vague consciousness of the mighty issues which depended on their successful action they returned again and again to the charge with increased determination to effect a permanent lodgment on Indian soil. The fates 80 far had not been propitious. There was, indeed, at the point at which we have arrived, substantial reason for abandoning as hopeless the purpose in view. Hawkins had left the country on Middleton's ship, discredited and humiliated; the Emperor, if not hostile to the English, was little disposed to favour them; the Surat authorities were openly antagonistic; while in the background loomed menacingly the Portuguese, who understood only too well that the triumph of the English would presage the downfall of their own power. In the circumstances, Middleton's departure seemed to close the entire chapter of English endeavour in this region. But as has often happened in the strange, eventful history of British domination in the East, when the hour of national destiny was at its darkest there was a dramatic transformation of the situation in a favourable sense.
In this crisis in the affairs of the English at Surat the determining factor was the arrival in Indian waters at the close of 1612 of two of the Company's ships, the Red Dragon and the Osiander, commanded by Thomas Best. It was an insignificant squadron, measured even by the standard of that day. The Red Dragon's tonnage was only 600 and the Osiander was a mere pinnace. Altogether, the crews of these vessels did not exceed 250 in number. But if the "fleet" was weak in numbers, it had the supreme advantage of being commanded by a man of exceptional ability and force of character, who was able to inspire the crews with some of that spirit of lofty idealism which has done so much in all times to build up the British Empire.
Best in his younger days had accompanied Frobisher on his Arctic voyages, and by that experience had qualified himself as a skilled navigator. He is revealed later as a merchant of some standing residing in Ratcliff and Limehouse. The combination of mariner and trader doubtless recommended him for the responsible position of commander of the Red Dragon. Nor can we suppose that the Company's directorate, in which there was a strong leaven of Puritanism, was otherwise than favourably influenced by the seriousness of his outlook on life, for he was a man of deep piety as may be gathered from the records of the voyage. His disposition is well reflected in the regulations which he drew up for the conduct of the men under his charge. In these the sternness of a rigid disciplinarian is mingled with the finer qualities of a just and upright man. Those found guilty of theft were for the first offence to be "grievously punished," and if they offended a second time they were to be liable to the death penalty. Every man was "to carry himself with sobriety and meekness towards the people of the country that justly of our partes no offence is given." There were heavy penalties for swearing and cursing. "For the first oathe sworne or for the first time cursing or baneninge (the offender) to receive three blows from ye Master with the bole of his wissle, for the second time six, for the third nine and for the fourth to stand for 24 hours in the bilbowes without either meat or drink and for every time hereafter." Fighting was strictly prohibited. No challenge was to be given "under paine of 40 strippes upon the bare back, and to stand in the bilbowes at the discretion of the general." Then, following upon other articles, came this invocation as a final rule of conduct: "The God of Peace so order and guide us that we may continue in all piety and love each towards the other, according to place and calling; that the end of this our voyage may be with more glory to God and better reformation of our sinful lives than the beginning thereof, and that by our example other men may be encouraged and stirred up to like laudable enterprises."
A man of this character was not at all likely to be deterred from the pursuit of a purpose upon which he had deliberately embarked, and so the sequel proved. As far as the native authorities were concerned, Best found the way smooth for his plans. Middleton's strong yet considerate policy in handling the Indian trading ships had, as we have stated, produced a distinctly favourable impression. A further advantage was that Makarrab Khan had fallen from power and that the new governor was disposed to be friendly to the English on his own account, apart from the influence of the local traders. No difficulty, therefore, was encountered at the outset in carrying on trade ashore. But the Englishmen had not been long established in Surat before rumours reached them of the big preparations that were being made at Goa to drive them away from the coast.
When the floating gossip crystalhzed into definite information that a fleet of four large galleons was being equipped for his undoing, Best took measures to meet the danger. His two ships were carefully overhauled in order to ensure the utmost effectiveness of their powers of offence and defence. Having assured himself by personal inspection that his orders had been carried out in every particular, Best caused the crews to be mustered and addressed them.
In his speech to the men of the Osiander, which the purser of the ship reported for the information of posterity, he told them that though the Portuguese were far superior to them in strength, they need not fear, as their opponents were "base and cowardly," and that it was a common saying: "Who so cowardly as a Portugall?" From his own experiences in the past he knew that after the first bravado was over they were "very cowards." He appealed to them as "Englishmen famous over the world for trew valour "to acquit themselves like men, "to put their trust in God and not fear death." He reminded thorn that death was the inevitable lot of man, and said that they could not die in a better cause "than in behalf of so worthy a country as we have, the Commonwealth of our land. 'For death,' saith he, 'is the passing to heaven.' He showed a saying of David in his sixteenth Psalm, towards the latter end, 'I will set God always before me, for He is on my right hand; therefore I shall not fall.' "Then, turning his discourse to mundane affairs. Best promised that in the event of any of them falling in the fight or being grievously wounded, the Company would do their duty by their relatives or by them. Finally, the commander "took a cup of wine and drunk to our master (the commander of the Osiander) and to the Company, and desired God to give us His blessing and so returned aboard his own ship to sermon."
It now devolved upon Best to decide the important question of how he should engage the Portuguese. Should he remain at the anchorage in the confined and shallow roads at Swally and allow himself to be attacked, or should he go out to meet the enemy? There was a good deal to be said for both plans, but as may be supposed the bolder course appealed to the dour fighting instinct of the commander. Nor did he show any hesitation when he actually got into the fight as to the direction of the attack. As the four great galleons, with their attendant flotilla, came up with the wind, making a very imposing display, he singled out the vice-admiral's ship, and when two cables' length from it "began to play upon it with great and small shot (so) that by an hour we had well peppered him with some fiftie-six great shot."
On the enemy's side the fire was very ineffective, and when night closed on the ships the only serious damage which had been done was the destruction of the Dragon's long boat. The next morning the fight was renewed by Best with such vigour that in a very short time three of the enemy's smaller craft were ashore. As the Osiander drew little water she was able to get to close quarters with the stranded galleons. She used her guns to good purpose—or to adopt the words of an eyewitness of the episode she "danced the hay about them, and so payed them that they durst not show a man on their decks." Afterwards the engagement continued with varying fortunes until the approach of night enforced a cessation of the firing. Soon after daybreak on November 30 the enemy's ships, which had grounded, floated off and were attacked by the Dragon, gallantly assisted by the Osiander. At this stage of the contest a well directed shot from the enemy killed the Osiander's boatswain and did other damage. For hours the fighting continued in desultory fashion, and night again fell upon the combatants without any decisive result being reached. While the English ships were at anchor a frigate was sent against them in the darkness, but its approach being opportunely discovered it was sunk by some well directed shots and her crew of eighty were drowned.
There was now a lull in the contest. The Portuguese did not appear to relish the idea of coming to close quarters with Best, and on his part the English commander felt that the odds against Hini were too great to justify a vigorous initiative. For some days the combatants manoeuvred against each other at points along the coast, and this continued until some weeks later, when the Portuguese, having obtained new supplies, again challenged the English ships. The action lasted, with intermissions, until the end of the third day. At this stage the Portuguese, finding that they could make no impression upon their stubborn enemy, finally abandoned the enterprise, leaving Best to return unmolested to Surat.
The advantage was markedly on the side of the English. At the expenditure of only a few hves they had successfully resisted an attack by a powerful fleet of the enemy. Apart from the losses inflicted upon the Portuguese, which were heavy, the English had damaged them severely in reputation and had correspondingly exalted their own prestige. By their spirited action they had confirmed the impression already made by Middleton that the English were a nation to be reckoned with on the sea where hitherto the Portuguese had been unchallenged masters.
Almost at once the English reaped the advantage of their victory in a marked strengthening of their position on land. A firman, or charter, permitting them to trade at Surat, which had previously been under discussion, was now ratified. It came down from Agra in the form of a private letter. In other circumstances Best might have been glad to receive it in this form, but his victory had given him confidence, and with a shrewd conception of native character he demanded that the document should be submitted in proper form. Assenting to this, the local officials, with the shahbunder at their head, went in state on January 11, 1613, to hand over the firman. The date is important as the first substantial landmark in the history of the British in India. As far as the concession itself was concerned it was found afterwards not to amount to much. The Mogul Government gave the very least they could, and in a form in which subsequent repudiation would be easy. Best, however, did not at the time realize this. With the consciousness of good work done he sailed with his ships for England within a week of the delivery of the firman.
With the departure of the English ships the Portuguese plucked up courage. In retaliation for the privileges conceded to the English they seized a large Guzerat ship near the mouth of the Tapti and carried it off to Goa. The action, instead of intimidating the Mogul, aroused his wrath. He instantly declared war on the Portuguese, and followed up the declaration by seizing all subjects of the Goa Government he could lay his hands on. Meanwhile, Makarrab Khan was sent with a large force to besiege the Portuguese settlement of Damaun on the Western India coast south of Surat.
A splendid opportunity now offered for the English if they had been in the position to avail themselves of it. But for many months after Best's departure the sole representatives of the East India Company in India were a handful of factors, with Thomas Aldworth as the chief agent at Surat. Day after day during the season the horizon was anxiously scanned for the familiar flag, but no English ship appeared. As the season wore on without the expected fleet the attitude of the Mogul authorities changed. They treated the firman as of no binding force, and without being actually hostile acted in such a way as to sterilize completely the efforts of the Englishmen. In spite of all Aldworth held tenaciously on to his position and by so doing probably saved the situation. The pied à terre which he defended and preserved, at all events, was of inestimable value in the subsequent operations which led directly up to the establishment of English influence in India on a stable basis.
In the middle of October, 1614, the long and eagerly awaited English fleet arrived off Surat. It consisted of four vessels—New Year's Gift, Hector, Merchants' Hope and Salmon—under the command of Nicholas Downton. Their arrival worked a fresh change in the situation. From being a negligible quantity the English became a factor of the utmost importance. Makarrab Khan promptly sought to enlist the aid of the ships in his operations against the Portuguese, assuming that as the quarrel had been forced upon the Mogul by his bestowal of favours upon the English, the latter would help him out of the difficulty. Downton, however, was not in the mood to take risks. His naturally cautious disposition had been strengthened by the misfortunes which had overtaken Middleton's voyage through an undue resort to belligerency. He hoped to be able to trade without entering into the quarrel on either side, and in any event he did not wish to risk his ships for the advantage of "the Moors," who had hitherto not shown an abounding affection for the English.
His benevolent neutrality was at first construed by the Moguls into an intention to side with the Portuguese, and they resented it accordingly. But any obscurity that there might have been about the position of affairs was soon dissipated by the Portuguese, who plainly indicated that they regarded Downton's fleet as not less enemy's ships than Best's two vessels. In the last days of the year they sent to him an insolent demand to retire from Indian waters. Downton treated the suggestion with proper contempt, but he could not fail to recognize that whether he desired it or not he had got to take a hand—and an important one—in this dispute.
Downton was a brave and capable commander and as a man possessed many estimable qualities, but he was what heavy witted and lacked the foresight desirable in one who had to conduct strategical operations. When, on January 14, the Portuguese fleet from Goa appeared off the port instead of adopting Best's plan of going out to engage it where he would have plenty of sea room and consequently scope for the exercise of his peculiar skill he remained at anchor at Swally in the confined roadstead which Sir Thomas Roe afterwards contemptuously but not inaptly described as "a fishpond." The blunder might have been fatal if to his temperamental shortcomings Downton had added a lack of courage. But he was as brave as a lion and as tenacious as a bulldog, and the balance was, as will be seen, redressed by these splendid qualities.
The Portuguese had made the most elaborate preparations for the fight. They were determined, if possible, to deliver a crushing blow which would not only settle the immediate difficulty but serve as a definite and final notice to their English rivals to quit the shores of India. The force they got together for this purpose consisted of six large galleons, two smaller ships and sixty small ships called frigates, with, in addition, two galleys and sundry insignificant craft. On the galleons were the flower of the Portuguese nobility, all imbued with a keen hatred of the hereticos and a fixed determination to destroy them or die in the attempt. The whole were under the command of Don Jeronimo, one of the most distinguished of the Portuguese functionaries in the East at the time. A day or two passed after the appearance of the Portuguese fleet without anything of importance happening. "In order to give an edge to their courage," as a letter written at the period puts it, Downton caused the Merchant's Hope to anchor some distance away from the other ships towards the entrance of the roadstead. The bait, if it were such, was readily swallowed. Before Downton realized what was happening the Merchants' Hope was heavily engaged by three of the enemy's smaller ships and by a great number of frigates. The onslaught was so determined that it looked for a time very much as if the vessel would be captured. The first volley from the Portuguese ships brought down the Merchants' Hope's main top and slew a number of her crew. Following this came a desperate attempt to board her, made with a reckless courage which belied the popular English conception of the Lusitanian of that time.
The fight waxed hot as English and Portuguese contested hand to hand on the bloodstained deck. Overwhelming odds must in the end have prevailed if at the nick of time Downton had not come up with his ships and created a welcome diversion. The Portuguese now began to give way. Seeing their movement the English renewed the fight with increased zest. Soon the bulk of the attacking party were flying over the sides in a helterskelter rush for their boats. Their flight was their undoing.
The English ships, getting to a nicety the range, plied the fugitives with shot large and small until many of the frigates were destroyed and the water was reddened with the blood of the unfortunate victims. Altogether between three hundred and four hundred fell in the fight, the number including scions of some of the noblest houses in Portugal. On the English side the casualties were small, being confined almost entirely to the crew of the Merchants' Hope.
The blow was a heavy one, but Don Jeronimo declined to accept it as decisive. As he could not overcome the English in direct conflict in the light of day he determined to see what could be accomplished at night by strategy. About a fortnight afterwards when darkness had fallen he sent down the river with the tide a number of frigates with two fireships. The latter fouled the Merchants' Hope's hawser and would probably have set her on fire if those on the ship had not seen the danger and taken measures to remove the dangerous craft to a safe distance. The next night another attempt of the same character was made and was attended with a like result. Convinced at length that the English fleet was not to be overcome Don Jeronimo on the following morning set sail for the South, leaving Downton to enjoy the fruits of his well-earned victory. The most immediate of these was the bestowal of the favour of the native authorities in a very practical form. The governor sent on board the English ships bountiful supplies, accompanied by flattering expressions of gratitude, and lavish promises of future benefits. He gave even more emphatic evidence of the impression that the recent events had made on him by resolutely rejecting overtures for peace which were tendered by the Portuguese. For the time being fortune decidedly smiled on the English At Surat. Downton all this time was not without his pre-occupations. There had come down from Agra, whither he had been sent by the Company to act as chaplain— the first who filled that position in India— the Rev. Peter Rogers, a turbulent cleric who was at cross purposes with most of the staff at the Agra factory and who on arrival at Surat promptly fell out with Downton. It is difficult to gather what was the precise origin of the quarrel. From the bitterness of Rogers' denunciations of the old commander the trouble might be assumed to be serious if we did not know from other sources the reverend gentleman's temperament. In a letter home he stated that Downton "delights not to stir much in the mud of his hypocritical courses," and he (the writer) had intended "in charity to pass by many gross abuses he hath offered me," yet "since this by God's Providence is timely come to light of that old soaked humour of his, of inveterate hatred and continuance where he once takes dislike" he felt bound to inform the Company that "the general is not the man you take him to be touching religion: he always illtreats his ministers; he neglects prayer on the week days, and very often on the Sabbath the exercises of religion, to the great offence and discouragement of many. He is much given to backbiting, and he has answered my fatherly remonstrances by saying scornfully that he could tell his duty better than I could advise him and such like demonstrances of pride and hypocrisy."
We may probably with safety regard this as the mere venomous outpouring of an ill-balanced mind. Downton doubtless had his faults, but that he was the hypocritical humbug that the irate chaplain would have us believe is contradicted by his whole career, the details of which are laid bare in documents emanating from sources independent of him. It seems likely that Downton had to exercise his disciplinary powers very sharply during his sojourn at Surat and that Rogers some time or other came under his lash. The commander's instructions to Aldworth on leaving Surat, quoted in an earlier chapter, at all events, are highly suggestive of friction.
That Rogers was not exactly a pattern of propriety is only too clear from the correspondence of the period. He was one of a rather common type of those early Indian chaplains who gave the authorities considerable trouble by their inability to adapt themselves to the necessary discipline of the Company's factories. A contemporary of Rogers, a "preacher" named Gouldinge, greatly disturbed the harmony of the Indian establishment three years after the period with which we are dealing, by his very unclerical conduct at Surat. When a request which he had preferred to accompany Mrs. Hawkins and her English maid—the wife of Richard Steele—to Ahmedabad had been refused, he disguised himself in "Moor's apparel" and surreptitiously joined the ship in which the ladies were sailing. His vagaries and the attendant complications did much to harden the hearts of the directors against the appeals made by their servants in India to permit their wives to join them.
Whatever feelings may have been entertained against Downton he was soon to pass beyond the influence of his enemies. At Surat there were signs that his health had been seriously undermined by the hardships he had undergone in previous voyages. As the voyage progressed he became feebler day by day until in the unsavoury precincts of Bantam he was stricken with mortal illness and expired in 1615. Orme, the Indian historian, says that he died "lamented, admired and unequalled." That verdict may be accepted as the just record of posterity. There was something very attractive about the man. "His disposition," says Purchas, "savoured the true heroic, piety and valour being in him seasoned with gravity and modesty." He was essentially staunch and true, one who made no great fuss about his actions, but who could be trusted to stick through thick and thin to a colleague in a difficulty. That he was unselfish follows from this as a matter of course. But it is necessary to study his career closely to realize the full height of the spirit of self-sacrifice which he more than once showed. His patriotism, too, was of a deep and abiding character. Next to his religious faith it was the strongest of his characteristics, colouring all his actions, and ever influencing his thoughts in times of crisis. A strong, essentially "straight" man he passes almost without question into the glorious company of Empire builders in the pages of history.