Page:History of India Vol 7.djvu/254

 204 FIRST SETTLEMENTS ON THE BOMBAY COAST of the Portuguese, came to be regarded by the Moghul viceroy as a useful sea-police. But the Portuguese, although beaten out of the Gulf of Cambay and the Persian Gulf, still harassed the route to the Red Sea. Surat was the main exit of the empire to Mecca, and the Moghul government hit upon the device of employing one nation of the infidels against another to keep open the pilgrim ocean high- way. In 1629 it granted by a farman, or " order," letters of marque to our president at Surat to make reprisals on all Portuguese ships, whether at sea or in harbour. Next year a Surat governor again wit- nessed a repulse of the Portuguese from his river, " our English " driving the landing parties pell-mell into the sea, and " not fearing to run up to the chin in water, even to the frigates' sides." We rescued the viceroy's son in the sight of the whole people, " to their great admiration and our nation's great honour." In the following winter, December, 1630, the treaty of Madrid declared that thenceforth the English and Portuguese should dwell at peace in the Indies, and enjoy a free commerce open to both— a consummation not to be attained by parchment alliances. The English at Surat thus early won for themselves a recognized position as trustworthy payers of revenue and as a maritime patrol for the Moghul Empire. On shore the empire was, within its limits, all powerful, but at sea it depended on mercenary fleets. As it held in check the pirate nests along the western shores of India by subsidizing the Abyssinian chiefs who had