Page:History of India Vol 7.djvu/245

 AN ENGLISH SETTLEMENT AT SURAT 196 although they had compelled him to do business by exchanging cargoes in the roadstead. The Moghul gov- ernor, while still refusing us a factory, allowed some trade. Next year, 1612, Captain Best with the old Bed Dragon and the little Hosiander routed the Portuguese squadron that commanded the approaches to Surat, while the Moghul governor looked on from the shore. A month's hard fighting destroyed for ever the Indian legend of the Portuguese supremacy over other Euro- peans. The gallant Captain Best would have been satis- fied with his victory, but he had with him a man who was resolved that England should reap its full results. Thomas Aldworth, factor and merchant, improved the momentary congratulations of the Moghul governor into a grant for our first settlement in India. " Through the whole Indies," Aldworth wrote to the Company in 1613, " there cannot be any place more beneficial for our country than this, being the only key to open all the rich and best trade of the Indies." With a handful of English merchants in an unfortified house he struggled through the reaction against us which fol- lowed the departure of Best's ships, until Downton's sea-fight two years later established for ever our supe- riority at Surat over the Portuguese. Downton's feat of arms proved, unexpectedly, to be a great strategic victory. He had cut in half the Por- tuguese line of communication along the Indian coast. That line was held by Goa as its Southern, and by Diu as its northern, base; and between the two by a squad- ron, which assured to Portugal the traffic of Surat and