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Chap. VI.] PROGRESS OF THE COMPANY. 60 1

ex[)ectation of receiving another 1000 tomands for the current year. It might a.d. i67o.

have been supposed that negotiation, which had already produced such gratify- ing results, would henceforth have the preference, and yet, strange to say, the language <ji" the court in regard to Persia becomes more warlike than ever ; anid in 1 683, while their agent at Gomberoon was informed of " their determination to adopt more spirited measures," a remonstrance was presented to the King of singtiUr Persia himself The purport of this document, as analyzed by Mr. Bruce in his gtrance An7ials, is singular enough to be worth quoting. "The court," he says, "after Kingof" stating their claims to his justice, which was proverbially held in Em'ope to be ^™ unalterable," proceeded to inform his majesty, "that contrary to this justice his ministers or officers at the port at which the English factories were settled, or to which their ships resorted, had obstructed their trade, in direct violation of solemn treaties between tiie two countries ; that though with respectful defer- ence they prayed for relief, yet, possessing a naval power which was unrivalled, if such relief should be withheld by his ministers and officei"s, they trusted that so great and so just a prince would, instead of considering that naval force which they employed for their ])rotection as disrespectful to his dignity, view it only as a necessary expedient for re.storing the amicable relations between Persia and England." The high-flown compliment paid to the shah's justice, however undeserved, may pass as an orientalism ; but nothing can be more ludicrous than the description of their naval power as "unrivalled," and their request that he would consider the employment of it against liim as only a "necessary expedient" for restoring "amicable relations."

For the unsatisfactory state of matters at Bantam and Gomberoon, the Progress of

I'll • 1 1 *'"* (^om-

Company had some compensation m the progi-ess which they continued to make pany at at Madras and in Bengal. The attempt of the Dutch on Bombay had shown the necessity of preparing for a similar attem})t on Fort St. George, and the works had been so strengthened as to be capable of a vigorous resistance. The expense was, as usual, a subject of complaint in the letter from the court; and in 1676 special instructions were given that no new buildings should be ])roceeded with, until ])lans and estimates were sent home and returned approved. This was undoubtedly the regular course, but the emergency justified the neglect of it, and subsequent events proved that the expenditure on fortifi- cations had been wisely made. Sevajee, during an irruption into the Caniatic, had passed within a short distance of Madi-iis, and there is reason to presume tliat nothing but its strength preserved it from treatment similar to that which Sm-at had more than once experienced. By his capture of Gingee and Vellore, he had permanently fixed himself in its vicinity ; and nothing therefore could have been more imprudent than to leave any portion of it exposed to an attack, either by land or sea. Indeed, in the verj' next season, the court had become so much alive to the importance of Fort St. George as a place of security for their property and servants, that they virtually withdrew the censure they had VoT. T. 43