Page:History of India Vol 6.djvu/270

 212 ENGLAND'S ATTEMPTS TO REACH INDIA reign of King Alfred. As rector of the Jesuits' College at Goa, Stephens 's letters to his father are said to have quickened the desire of the English merchants for direct trade with the East. In 1583 Ralph Fitch set forth with three principal companions bearing letters from Queen Elizabeth to the King of Cambay and to the Emperor of China. They journeyed by the Euphrates valley to Onnuz, where they were arrested by the Portuguese, and carried thence as prisoners to Goa. Emerging from this captivity in 1584, Fitch visited the court of the Emperor Akbar, in northern India; one of his companions married a native woman, another entered the Moghul service, a third had turned monk at Goa. But Fitch went on. After many adventures in Burma, Malacca, the " Golden Chersonesus," and Bengal, he again explored the Portuguese misrule in Cochin and Goa, and thrilled London in 1591 with the magnificent possibilities of Eastern commerce. The effect was, as we have seen, the expansion of the Turkey Company into an East India Company in 1593, with a charter to trade through the Grand Seignior's " countries overland to the East Indies." Its ultimate consequences were more important. Fitch had done for England perhaps less than Linschoten did for Hol- land. But the less sufficed. It now became a race between England and Holland for the capture of the Indian trade. Houtman's expe- dition of 1595 - 1597, under the impulse of Linschoten, was quickly succeeded by others. In 1598 five other Dutch squadrons sailed, including the one under the