Page:History of India Vol 7.djvu/247

 SIB THOMAS BOE AT THE MOGHUL COUBT 197 Company to pay all expenses and to reap any results that might accrue. Roe reached Surat in September, 1615, and pro- ceeded to the Moghul court, then at Ajmir. Surat was the chief starting-place for Mecca, and the Portuguese squadrons had troubled the ocean path of pilgrimage. The Imperial Court, too happy that one infidel fleet should destroy another, granted to Sir Thomas Roe an " Order " for trade. These " Orders " were sometimes called " grants " or " licenses," and sometimes digni- fied with the name of " treaties.' ' 1 The truth is that as our power in India increased they gradually developed from mere permits into grants, then into treaties, and finally into de jure confirmations of conquests which 1 Farmana, variously spelt Phirmaund, Firman, etc., in the Company's records. Under the strongly centralized system of the Moghul Empire every authorization, whether for succession to an office or to an estate, or for the levying of a toll, or for trade, or for industrial enterprises (from the manufacture of salt to the re- clamation of waste lands and the cutting down of the jungle), required an order from the throne or its local representative. The word " treaty " is misapplied to such grants. From the native point of view they divide themselves into four not strictly demarcated classes. (1) Parwdnas, permits issued by an executive officer, the governor of a port, or sometimes a mere custom house subordinate. (2) Nishans, literally " signs," in the form of a sealed document, or flag, or other emblem, from the local authority of a district or province. (3) Farmdnas, issued by the emperor or his viceroys or deputies. A farman was literally an " Order " conferring title, rank, command, office, or privileges, and was essentially of the nature of an imperial command/ It had the wide sense which attaches to our term " Order," from a General Order in the Field to an Order in Council or a Local Government Order, or Order by the Board of Trade. (4) Sanads, or grants for land, money, inheritance, or high administrative office, under the Imperial seal, and serving as a discharge to the treasury for payments, allowances, or exemptions of revenue. The early servants of the Company in India had to content them- selves with the inferior classes of permits, parwdnas and nishans ; then followed farmdnas, and finally sanads. But during their first century and a half in India for " treaty " or " grant " it is generally safe to substitute the word " order.**