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20 EARLY COMPETITION FOR INDIAN COMMERCE grievances or settlement of disputes with Dutch, French, or Portuguese, they would have been very soon exterminated. They did no such thing; they took to their own weapons, and their military operations were often upon a considerable scale. In 1622 there was formal peace between Portugal (which then belonged BOATS ON THE PERSIAN GULF. From Edwin Lord Weeks's Through Persia and India. (Copyright, 1895, by Harper & Brothers.) to Spain) and England; but the English East India Company was at bitter war in the Indian Ocean with the Portuguese, who had disturbed its trade and mo- lested the Honourable Company's ships. So the Eng- lish Company fitted out a small fleet at Surat, and sent it up the Persian Gulf with orders to assist Shah Abbas, the Persian king, in turning the Portuguese out of the island of Ormuz, which they had held for a cen- tury, and which gave them exclusive command of the