Page:History of India Vol 7.djvu/248

 198 FIRST SETTLEMENTS ON THE BOMBAY COAST we had de facto won. The treaty as drafted by Sir Thomas Roe would have allowed the English to found factories at all ports of the Moghul Empire, particu- larly in Gujarat, in Bengal, and in Sind; and exempted them from inland transit tolls, on payment of a fixed import duty of Sy 2 per cent, on goods and 2 per cent, on treasure. But these proposals, although they figure as " Roe's Treaty " in Anglo-Indian histories, never passed beyond the draft stage and were rejected by the Imperial Court. Roe obtained, however, a permit for the English to reside at Surat and to travel freely into the interior, together with an order for the redress of the injuries inflicted on them by the local officials. He afterwards, in 1618, received a farman, or grant, in similar although somewhat handsomer terms, from the heir apparent, Prince Mirza Khurram, afterwards the Emperor Shah Jahan, then " fifteenth Viceroy of Gujarat," the province of which Surat was the chief port. The prince allowed the English to hire, although not to buy or build, a house for their trade at Surat, and promised the assistance of boats in case they were attacked by the Portuguese. Sir Thomas Roe lingered long enough among the Moghul grandees to find that he was by no means regarded as the ambassador of an equal sovereign. But his presence at the Imperial Court, and the heir apparent 's viceroyalty of Gujarat, gave prestige to the English at Surat. Meanwhile Captain Keeling, the " General " of the squadron which had brought out Roe, resolved to carry the war against the Portuguese into Southern India.