Page:History of India Vol 8.djvu/49

Rh Gulf. The business was done, with the aid of the Persians, very thoroughly; there was a regular bombardment of the fortress, and a naval action with the Portuguese royal fleet, until the island was surrendered, the fortifications razed, and the Portuguese garrison transported to Goa.

We do not hear that Portugal made any serious remonstrance against these proceedings, which would certainly startle modern diplomacy; but it stands on record that James I and the Lord High Admiral (the Duke of Buckingham) exacted large sums of money from the Company as the royal share of the profits. Another heavy fine was again demanded by Buckingham from the Company before he would permit them to despatch a fleet for the protection of their commerce against Portuguese reprisals. Probably the English might have claimed to set off against the affair at Ormuz other similar irregularities on the part of the Portuguese; for among the nations then engaged in the East India trade there was little scruple about ways and means of dealing with rivals.

But the Dutch, though formally friends and allies of England, soon became much more dangerous enemies in Asia than the Portuguese, and were now inflicting heavy damage on the British East Indian trade which the English Company was by no means disposed to endure. The two Companies were rapidly drifting into a rather ferocious war, quite uncontrolled by international law or military usage, in which little quarter was given and nothing spared that might extir-