BOOKS.
SIR THOMAS ROE'S JOURNAL AND CORRESPONDENCE.* THE Journal and Correspondence of Sir Thomas Roe are among the most important documents in the history of
9 The Emt,ciesg of Sir Thomas Roe to The Court of the Great Mogul, 1676-1079, as narrated in his Journal and Correspondence. Edited from Contemporary Records by William Foster. B.& 2 vols. London: Printed for the Hakluyt 'ociety. 1:30s.3 British relations with India. The early date of his mission, the length of his residence at the Mogul Court, the position and character of the Ambassador, and his consequent influence upon the diplomatic and commercial situation, all distinguish his Embassy above any previous or succeeding negotiations. He was in reality the first fully accredited Envoy to the Mogul Emperor. The first English ship had reached Surat only seven years before; and though its captain, William Hawkins, had presented a letter from King James to the Emperor Jahangir at Agra, neither his credentials nor his two years of hobnobbing with that extremely merry Monarch entitle him to diplomatic rank. Whatever trading concessions the rough sea-dog contrived to win in the Emperor's melting moods were recalled at the urgency of the Portuguese, who still held the Indian seas to be their own dominion, and were determined to keep out intruders. Hawkins had retired in confusion, considerably mellowed by the prolonged course of dissipation at Court, and Canning and Kerridge were equally unable to overcome the strenuous opposition of the Portuguese Jesuits and their well-bribed Mogul allies in the councils of the son of Akbar. The effect of the two naval victories of Best and Downton off Surat and in Swally Roads had more effect than all these diplomatic re- presentations ; but still, when Roe arrived in 1G15 the English agents and traders were in a humiliating situa- tion, subject to all kinds of indignities, possessing no recognised or valid rights, and obliged to sue and bribe for such slight facilities as they could win. Their chiefs, the agents of the East India Company, had brought scorn upon their nation by " kotowing " to the Mogul dignitaries, cringing to insult, asserting no trace of dignity; and had even " suffered blowes of the porters, base Peons, and beene thrust out by them with much scorns by head and shoulders with- out seeking satisfaction." Englishmen were flouted, robbed, arrested, even whipped in the streets. It was evident that a different manner of man was needed to retrieve the indignity done to our name and honour. Sir Thomas Roe was invited by the directors, after much consideration and debate, to accept the task, and the choice was approved by King James, whose Royal commission duly constituted, appointed, ordained, and deputed "the said Sir Thomas Rowe our true and undoubted Attorney, Procurator, Legate, and Ambas- sador " to that " high and mighty Monarch, the Greate Magoar, King of the Orientall Indyes, of Condahy, of Chismer, and of Corason."
Roe was in every way an excellent choice. He combined the business capacity of the great merchant with the urbanity and address of the courtier. His grandfather was Lord Mayor of London, and the blood of the Greshams ran in his veins; but he was entered at Magdalen, Oxford, belonged to the Middle Temple, had been Esquire of the Body to Queen Bess herself, and was on terms of affectionate intimacy with Prince Henry and his sister Elizabeth, the future " Rose of Bohemia." Not yet thirty-five, he had led a voyage of discovery to Guiana and explored the Orinoco ; he had disputed in Latin with Dutch divines ; he had even sat for Tamworth,—in the "Addled Parliament," it is true. The East India directors described him as "of a pregnant understand- inge, well spoken, learned, industrious, and of a comelie personage," and his latest editor justly adds that " his commanding presence and dignified bearing were useful qualifications for a mission to an Eastern Court, while in the still more important matters of judgment and tact he was equally well equipped. Sprung from a noted City family, he combined the shrewdness, readiness of resource, and business ability which had raised his ancestors to fortune, with the culture and experience obtained by a varied training in most favourable circumstances." More than all this, he was a true Elizabethan, with the gallant bravery, the passionate devotion to King and country, the great-hearted fanaticism, of his age. It was not the merchant's son, but the Elizabethan gentleman, who faced the Mogul Prince as an equal, and told an insulting Prime Minister that " if his greatness were no more than his manners he durst not use me soe : that I was an Ambassador from a mighty and free Prince, and in that quality his better." When the Governor of Surat tried slyly to carry out the odious practice, hitherto tamely allowed, of searching the persons of British subjects, in spite of Roe's claiming the absolute exemption of an Ambassador's suite, there was a spirited scene :—
" Master Wallis breaking out came up after me and tould me this treachery ; wheron I turud my horse and with all speed rode backe to them, I confess too angry. When I came up, I layd my hand on my swoord, and my men breaks through and came about me. Then I asked what they entended by soe base treachery : I was free landed, and I would die soe, and if any of them thirst touch any belonging to me, I bade him speake and shew himselfe. Then they desired me not to take yt in ill part : it was done in Frendship. I called for a Case of Pistol's, and hanging them at my saddle I replyed those were my Frendes, in them I would
trust It was a Custome to be usd to rouges and theeves and not to free men : I was resolved not to return to my Country with shame; I would rather dye there with Honor."
Roe was certainly no meek-tempered man. His Journal is fall of similar scenes. But he did well to be angry, and his defiant and punctilious assertion of his dignity, as the mirror of his Sovereign, his insistence upon every necessary point of courtesy, and his stately refusal to unbend a jot of his proud bearing, had their due effect. When he came to India, the English were very nearly on the point of being driven out of even their slight hold at Surat ; the influence of the Portuguese at Court threatened to oast the scanty merchant colony which, in deep humiliation, was unconsciously laying the foundations of empire; the Mogul authorities were accustomed to treat the English as beggars to be spurned. All this was changed before he left India. Despite the opposition of the Prince, who almost ruled his father, and who, as Governor of Surat, had the means of making his enmity felt ; in spite of the intrigues of the Queen, the Prime Minister, and the Jesuits, Roe not merely asserted his countrymen's rights, but won a series of important diplomatic victories. He compelled the Court favourite to refund his illegal exactions, and " recovered all bribes, extortions, debts made and taken before my tyme till this day, or at least an honourable composition." His firm- ness and courage, combined with wary management, had been too much for the cleverness of Father Corsi, and the Portu- guese had almost lost their influence. The Emperor and his
son, Prince Khurram, were men who were fully capable of measuring and admiring Roe's manly qualities ; and his independence and dogged persistence, supported by natural dignity and courtliness, won from the Mogul authorities as much advantage as could at that time be ex- pected. The Ambassador had tried in vain to obtain a
general treaty, embodying articles resembling the Capitula- tions granted in Turkey. Experience taught him that the time was not ripe for any such concession, and the Mogul Emperor was too ignorant of foreign kingdoms to measure India with them. " Neyther will this overgrowne Eliphant," said Roe, "descend to Article or bynde himselfe reciprocally to any Prince upon terms of Equality, but only by way of favour admitt our stay." "You can never expect to trade here upon Capitulations that shalbe permanent. Wee must serve the tyme." All he could obtain were firmans, or orders to the local authorities, sanctioning the English trade at Surat upon reasonably satisfactory terms. " You shall be sure of as much priviledge as any stranger," he promised, and he kept his word. The English factory at Surat was set on a sufficiently stable basis, and recognised officially by Emperor and Prince-Governor. Indeed, Roe was disposed to judge favourably of the Mogul authorities, considering their ignorance and the uncertainty of their official position. "All the Goverment dependes upon the present will," he wrote in 1618, " whose appetite only governs the lordes of the kingdome; but their Justice is generallie good to strangers ;
they are not rigorous, except in scearching for thinges to please [i.e., presents and luxuries], and what trouble we have
is for hope of them, and by our owne disorders." He marked the turbulence of the English crews and even some of the factors, and warned the Company against a policy of aggression :—
" A war and trafique are incompatible. By my consent, you shall no way engage yourselves but at sea, wher you are like to gayne as often as to loose. It is the beggering of the Portugallu notwithstanding • his many rich residences and territoryes, that hee keepes souldiers that spendes it; yet his garrisons are meane. He never profited by the Indyes since hee defended them. Observe this well. It bath beene also the error of the Dutch, who seeke Plantation heere by the Swoord. They have a woonderfull stocks, they proule in all Places, they Posses some of the best ; yet ther dead Payes consume all the gayne. Lett this bee received as a rule that if you will Profltt, seeke it at Sea, and in quiett trade; for without controversy it is an error to affect Garrisons and Land warm in 'India."
The situation at Surat did not, certainly, warrant the forecast of a Clive or a Hastings, nor had the Mogul Empire then suffered the destructive puritanism of A.urangzib or . the disasters of a Maratha war. Despite corruption and the seeds of decay, it was still the Empire of Akbar the Great, and Roe would indeed have possessed the gift of prophecy if he had foreseen the days of Buxar and Plaesy, and the steady rule of a Western Kaisar-i-Hind.
Prob bly no writer on India has been more often quoted than Sir 'Thomas Roe, yet his Journal, the source of so many extracts,rhas never been properly edited until now. It was indeed published, together with some of his letters* from India, by Parches in his Pilgrimes, soon after Roe had taken up his new Embassy to Constantinople ; and Purchas's edition his been the source of all the numerous reprints or translations which the novelty of the subject naturally evoked. The Ambassador's original fair' copy of the first two years of the Journal by some accident has fortunately been preserved in the British Museum, together with a smaller portion which apparently formed one of the instalments of the Journal sent from time to time by Roe to his immediate employers, the East India directors, the rest of which are lost. From these manuscripts Mr. Foster has been able to produce a full and trustworthy text of the Journal from March, 1615, to February, 1617; and a collation with Purchas's edition shows that the new text contains about two-thirds of new matter, whilst it corrects and explains the old text in numerous details. After February, 1617, Mr. Foster is still obliged, for lack of manuscripts, to use Purchas's text, till it stops abruptly in January, 1618. But throughout the mission the letters which he has inserted, from the collections in the India and Record Offices, are of the greatest value ; and for the last year, 1618-19, this corre- spondence, which happily runs to nearly sixty closely printed pages, is our sole guide. The impol tame of this source is apt to be overlooked in the preference for the more intimate and personal interest of the Journal; nevertheless, the letters are better written, and often quite as valuable, and we must consider their publication a great and particular service on the part of the judicious editor. Mr. Foster's work upon the correspondence of the Honourable Company has amply demonstrated his familiarity with the records of the period and his accuracy in handling them, and he has turned his knowledge to excellent account in the annotation of Roe's Journal and letters. No allusion seems to escape him, and there is not a clerk in the Company's ser- vice, an interpreter, or a merchant of whom he cannot tell us the history and character, probably down to the colour of his hair, if be had the mind. He is almost as much at home among the mansabcbirs and other nobles of the Mogul Court, and on all cognate subjects his notes are a mine of informa- tion. In the details of scholarly editing the book will pass a severe test, and though mere readers might wish that the text had been broken up into paragraphs to relieve the eye and divide the subjects, they will find some consolation in several curious portraits, not only of Roe and his chaplain, but of the Great Mogul and his heir,—clearly very loose copies of some of those beautiful Indian miniatures which may be seen in the, British Museum or in Colonel Hanna's fine collection. There is also a remarkably interesting map drawn by William Baffin himself, who was a mate on Sir Thomas's ship. In fine, the Hakluyt Society and its in- dustrious secretary deserve all gratitude for a very handsome and scholarly edition of a notable collection of State papers.
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