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 CHAPTER IX

An English Mission to the Court of the Great Mogul

ECISIVE as was Downton's victory as far as the Portuguese were concerned its effect on the local situation was even more ephemeral than Best's action had proved. In a certain sense it even aggravated the difficulties, for it gave strength to the anti-English party at Court, who were not slow to point out that the war with the Portuguese had been brought about by the concessions made to the English. The position was made all the more imsatisfactory by the appointment to the government of Surat at this juncture of Prince Khurrum, a younger son of Jehangir, who afterwards figured in history as the Emperor Shah Jehan. The prince had always been inimical to the English, and he took up the government of Surat with a plain intention to make short work of these troublesome foreigners who had been disturbing the peace of the Western seaboard and introducing their riotous mode of living ashore. He was much too great a man to 131