ENGLISH GAINS ON THE PERSIAN GULF 55 1619 - 1622, he is said to have received not a single letter of instruction or information from the court of Spain. Yet in this very viceroyalty a catastrophe had taken place which might have stung even Spain into a spasm of remorseful energy. Ormuz, the pearl of Portuguese Asia, fell to the English. During the century since Albuquerque captured the island in 1515, the Portu- guese had dealt with it as their own, and dominated from its fortress the entrance to the Persian Gulf. Of the treaties by which they bound the princes of Ormuz I have already spoken. On the death of a king of Or- muz, says a Venetian traveller, Cesare de' Pederici, circ. 1565, " the captain of the Portugals chooseth an- other of the blood-royal/ ' and " sweareth him to be true " " to the King of Portugal as his Lord and Gov- ernor.' ' Their oppressions and piracies had led the Shah of Persia to appeal for help to France in 1603, and seven years later to England. In 1618 a trade was opened between our agents at Surat and the port of Jask, near the entrance to the Persian Gulf, and in 1620 James I addressed a letter to Shah Abbas with a view to obtaining a factory on shore. The Portuguese opposed our ships as usual with a greatly superior force, and in November, 1620, the English gained a victory which made them a recognized power in the Persian Gulf. The Persian governor determined to use us against the general oppressor— the Portuguese— and in 1621 refused to allow our ships to embark their cargoes until
