Page:History of India Vol 4.djvu/94

68 Englishmen were flouted, robbed, arrested, and even whipped in the streets. It was evident that a different manner of man was needed to retrieve the indignity done to our name and honour. Sir Thomas Roe was invited by the directors, after much consideration and debate, to accept the task, and the choice was approved by King James, whose royal commission duly constituted, appointed, ordained, and deputed "the said Sir Thomas Rowe our true and undoubted Attorney, Procurator, Legate, and Ambassador" to that "high and mighty Monarch, the Greate Mogoar, King of the Orientall Indyes, of Condahy, of Chismer, and of Corason."

Roe was in every way an excellent choice. He combined the business capacity of the great merchant with the urbanity and address of the courtier. His grandfather was lord mayor of London, and the blood of the Greshams ran in his veins; but he was entered at Magdalen College, Oxford, belonged to the Middle Temple, had been esquire of the body to Queen Bess herself, and was on terms of affectionate intimacy with Prince Henry and his sister Elizabeth, the future "Rose of Bohemia." Not yet thirty-five, he had led a voyage of discovery to Guiana and explored the Orinoco; he had disputed in Latin with Dutch divines; he had even sat for Tamworth in the "Addled Parliament." The East India directors described him as "of a pregnant understanding, well spoken, learned, industrious, and of a comelie personage," and Mr. William Foster, the latest and best editor of his journal, justly adds that "his commanding presence and dignified bearing were