Page:History of India Vol 7.djvu/79

 DEFEAT OF THE PORTUGUESE 51 with the native Governor of Surat, but he, seeing the change of fortune, turned a deaf ear. The Portuguese then tried a blockade. Their rowed " frigates " held the shallows and partially cut off sup- plies from the shore, while their great galleons and galleys, with a fighting force many times the number of our whole crews, anchored outside the English. There our four vessels lay, one of them disabled, be- tween the crowd of " frigates " protected by shoals and the line of war-ships to seaward. Downton says it was only the impossibility of renewing the burned mainmast of the Hope that prevented his trying his fortune against the Portuguese viceroy in deep water. But each morning and evening he fired off a volley at the enemy, aiming his best cannon at the viceroy's prow— " which I did to try his temper. " The capture of the English ships seemed, however, only a question of time. After two weeks of constant watch and pa- tient endurance, on February 3, 1615, writes Downton, " it pleased God, this day, at night when I had least leisure to mourn, to call to his mercy my only son." " The volleys aforesaid appointed to try the temper of the viceroy," he sternly adds, " served also to honour his burial." But the spectacle of a great armada not daring day after day to attack four small ships had its effect on the native governor's mind, and the Portuguese viceroy found that the English temper could better sustain a blockade than his own could prolong it. So on Febru- ary 8th, the great galleons, having received further