Page:History of India Vol 4.djvu/108

78 to insufferable insolencies, and vse vs woorse than any braue enemie would or any other but vnthanckfull drunckards that wee haue releeued from Cheese and Cabbage, or rather from a Chayne with bread and water." In his solitude and harassments his great consolation was the sense of duty ungrudgingly performed, and he could write to his employers proudly, yet without boasting, "My sincerity toward you in all Actions is without spott; my Neglect of Priuat Gayne is without example, and my frugalitye beyond your expectation. I was neuer an ill husband of my Credit nor any trust committed to mee. My Patrimoniall vnthriftines only I feele and repent. I will bragg of no Industrie nor successe. Judge mee by my Actions, Not by the fauour of an Infidel King, with whom yet I stand on such outward showes of Creditt as Neuer any stranger did." His "frugalitye" was indeed extraordinary. He kept up the embassy on about £250 a year; his own salary was only 600; and though the Company received him with twelve coaches at Tower Wharf, and voted him £1,500 for his services, he returned a poor man, and was thankful to accept another mission from the king, though it involved a second exile, this time to Constantinople. In those days it was an exception for a man in his position to refuse, as unworthy of his high office, the many opportunities for making money in India; but Thomas Roe was fashioned in a refined and exalted ideal of conduct, and his high principles and noble character stand clearly revealed in his writings.

We shall obtain no more familiar glimpses of the jo-