THE DUTCH DISTRUSTED BY THE MOGHULS 203 turned to Surat as director of Dutch trade. But the Dutch, accustomed to barbarian island chiefs, did not realize that they had come under an empire which in- sisted on good behaviour, and could crush the petty infidel settlements by a stroke of the pen. Even the English, backed by the imperial order for trade, had to rest satisfied with the protection assured to all resi- dents within the Moghul Empire, and were not allowed to fortify their house at Surat. The Dutch attacks on native vessels now involved us in the common disgrace of the European name, and while the Dutch were slaugh- tering us at Amboyna, in 1623, the English at Surat were held responsible by the Moghul governor for the piracy of their most bitter enemies. He seized upon our warehouses, threw our president and factors into irons, and let them hold their consultations " in prison " for seven months, amid the revilings of " whole rabbles of people." The Moghul government, however, soon learned to discriminate. It ceased, at any rate, to confound the peaceable English traders, who paid their customs punc- tually and abhorred images, with the Portuguese, who prostrated themselves like Hindus before a tinsel god- dess, and plundered the True Believers on the holy voyage to Mecca. In 1622 our factory at Surat had organized the fleet which destroyed the Portuguese power in the Persian Gulf, and so outflanked the north- ern base of the Portuguese at Diu, which had controlled the entrance to the Gulf of Cambay. The English, hav- ing thus freed the approaches at Surat from the menace
