Page:A Comprehensive History of India Vol 1.djvu/370

 336 JIISTOKV OF INDIA. [Hook II.

A. D 1680. as on former occasions of a similar description, clamoured loudly for redress; and negotiations with that view were (»pened between the English govenirnent and the States- general. These, after promising much, proved abortive, and tht- Company's connection with Bantam was finally closed. It had lasted eighty years.

Trade in ttio Aboiit tliis time tlie Company's trade in the Persian Gulf was threatened With Similar extinction. At a very early penod in their history they had here acquired a permanent revenue, independent of the profits of trade, by a grant of half of the customs of Gomberoon as a reward for assisting the Persians to expel the Portuguese from Ormuz. For a series of years they drew large sums by virtue of this grant, and at the same time carried on an extensive trade, making advantageous exchanges of English and Indian goods .against the raw silks and other produce of Persia. Every new reign in that country-, however, endangered both their revenue and their trade; and they would often have abandoned the latter altogether had they not been aware that the moment they ceased to carry it on the former also would be forfeited. At la.st the revenue became stiU more precarious than the trade, and it continued annually to figure in the Company's books under the name of arrears of customs at Gomberoon. Again and again communications passed on this subject between the court at home and the presidency at Surat.

The Com- The gi'cat question was how the Persian trade could be most effectualh'

])any's un- _ _ . . . '

certain posi- rcvived, and payment of arrears obtained. At one time negotiation, at another force, seemed expedient ; and the Company hung, as it were, su.spended between the two, leaning sometimes to the one and sometimes to the other. In the season 1 675—76, the warlike tendency had so far prevailed that two of the ships consigned to Surat were armed for service in the Persian Gulf; but before the final plunge was taken misgivings arose, and the conclusion arrived at was that could 3000 tomands, equivalent to £9000 sterling per annum, be obtained I y treaty in lieu of the Gomberoon customs, it would be far better to negotiate. This was undoubtedly a very judicious conclusion. Negotiation appears accordingly to have been attempted, but unfortunately without success ; for in 1677-78, we find the Company again agitating the question of peace or war with Persia, and again giving the preference to the former, though it was only hoped that instead of 3000, 1000 tomands might be recovered. During the following season the subject appears to have been overlooked, and in that ( i" 1679-80 it is mentioned only to record the desponding resolution, that unless the trade at Gomberoon should be more advantageous than it had proved for several years it was to be relinquished The very next year the court must have been agreeably surprised to learn that the aiTears which they had thus begun to regard as a desperate debt had become the subject of a special firman, by which the King of Persia had ordered the payment of 1000 tomands as their share of the customs for the previous year, and that their agent was in