Page:History of India Vol 4.djvu/95

Rh useful qualifications for a mission to an Eastern court, while in the still more important matters of judgment and tact he was equally well equipped. Sprung from a noted City family, he combined the shrewdness, readiness of resource, and business ability which had raised his ancestors to fortune, with the culture and experience obtained by a varied training in most favourable circumstances."

More than all this, he was a true Elizabethan, with the gallant bravery, the passionate devotion to king and country, and the great-hearted fanaticism of his age. It was not the merchant's son, but the Elizabethan gentleman, who faced the Moghul prince as an equal, and told an insulting prime minister that "if his greatness were no more than his manners he durst not use me soe; that I was an Ambassador from a mighty and free Prince, and in that quality his better." When the governor of Surat tried slyly to carry out the odious practice, hitherto tamely allowed, of searching the persons of British subjects, in spite of Roe's claiming the absolute exemption of an ambassador's suite, there was a spirited scene: "Master Wallis breaking out came up after me and tould me this treachery; whereon I turnd my horse and with all speed rode backe to them, I confess too angry. When I came up, I layd my hand on my sword, and my men breake through and came about me. Then I asked what they entended by soe base treachery: I was free landed, and I would die soe, and if any of them durst touch any belonging to me, I bade him speake and shew himself. Then they de-