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 262 APPENDIX I viceroy in 1635 seemed to open the door to an inter- national settlement of the Indies. When the instrument reached England, the Company applied to King Charles and to his minister at Madrid with this end in view, as usual without practical result. After the separation of the crowns of Spain and Portugal in 1640, our Surat president again entered into negotiations on his own account with the Goa viceroy, and obtained from him letters to the Portuguese ambassador in London. The directors in England also addressed his Excellency. But the Portuguese ambassador distrusted their ama- teur diplomacy and would grant no settled peace in the Indies; indeed, only a further truce for two years. In 1642 Charles I, while arranging for freedom of trade between England and Portugal, agreed that their rela- tions in India should remain for three years more on the basis of the local Surat-Goa Convention. Cromwell had no liking for such private negotia- tions. Resenting the shelter given by Portugal to Prince Rupert's fleet, he prepared the way for peace by Blake's cannon, and three months after the Dutch submission he extorted a final settlement from Portu- gal. His Portuguese treaty of July, 1654, placed on an international basis the right of English ships to trade to any Portuguese possession in the East Indies. In all this Cromwell made no pretence of special favour to the Company. To him the India trade was one of the great English interests to be subserved by the treaties which followed European wars. Yet as the Company was a chief gainer from the national sue-