2>0 HISTORY OF INDIA. [Book II.
AD. 1009. lie " would give her all tilings necessary, with .slaves," that " sliee should tume Christian," and "by this meanes my meates and drinkes should be looked into by them, and I should live without feare." Hawkias objected to the maiden pro- posed, " in regard she was a Moore," but he added, " if so bee there could bee a Christian found, I would accept it." Jehangir took him at his word, and pro- duced the orphan daughter of an Armenian Christian, a captain who had been highly esteemed by Akber. "I little thought," says Hawkins, "a Chri.stians daughter could bee found ;" but now, " I seeing she was of so honest a descent, having passed my word to the king, could not withstand my fortunes. Where- fore I tooke her ; and for want of a minister, before Christian witnesses I mar- ryed her: the priest was my man Nicholas, which I tliought had beene lawfull, till I met with a preacher that came with Sir Heniy Middleton, and hee shewing mee the error, I was newly manyed againe: so ever after I lived content and without feare, shee being wilHng to goe where I went, and live as I lived." Ultimate Tliis marriage, though entered into under unpromising circumstances, appears
t rcti t m 6 11 1
of Hawkins, to have provcd happy. If so, it was the only good thing which Captain Haw- kins obtained at Agra. Instead of being able, as he had hoped, to feather his nest, he ultimately found that he had only been building castles in the air. The salary promised him was never paid ; and courtiers, bribed by the Portuguese, having succeeded in convincing Jehangir that a breach with them would prove more pernicious than a league with the English promised to be beneficial, the fickle and unprincipled monarch cancelled all the promises he had made of con- ferring commercial privileges on the English, and left Hawkins to find his way to the coast as he best could. Return of Sucli was the information which made Sii* Henry Middleton despair of being
Middleton able to establish a factory at Surat. If he had continued to have any doubts on the subject, they would have been dissipated by the natives themselves, who, while they assured him of their anxiety to trade, confessed that so long as the Portuguese retained their ascendency, they durst not venture to incur their displeasure. Their advice therefore was, that the English vessels should quit Surat for the port of Gogo, in the Gulf of Cambay, where, it was said, the Por- tuguese would be less likely to interfere. Sir Henry Middleton had another plan in view; and, after succeeding in taking on board Captain Hawkins and liis wife, who had arrived from Agra, and the Englishmen who had been left at Surat, called a council for the purpose of determining their futm-e course. At this council, says Sir Henry, " I propoimded whether it were best to goe from hence directly for Priaman, Bantam, &c., or to returne to the Red Sea, there to meete with such Indian shippes as should be bound tliither ; and for that they would not deale with us at their owne doores, wee having come so far with commodities fitting their countrie, nowhere else in India vendable, I thought we should doe om^selves some right, and them no wrong, to cause them barter with
to the Red Sea.
