Arnold Wright

“ With all its imperfections the Treaty of Nanking was an instrument of enormous importance to the commercial interests not of Great Britain alone but of the civilised world. It ushered in a new era of trade—an era fraught with great possibilities for the West and the East alike. No longer were merchants transacting business in China at the mercy of a corrupt and capricious officialdom, carrying on their transactions in daily and almost hourly dread of a crisis which would inflict disastrous injury upon their interests. ”

“ Though heavily beaten, with some of her best centres of trade captured, her commerce crippled and her prestige shattered, Portugal fought on with all the energy of despair. Driven out of the Eastern seas by Dutch ships she concentrated her resources on the defence of her possessions in India. These were still a splendid heritage worthy of a mighty effort. The capital, Goa, on the West coast, was "no mean city." It sheltered a large and opulent population drawn from every part of the East. ”

“ In a grave afterwards covered with a modest stone like those in the old churchyards at home, Coryat's remains were laid to rest in the English God's Acre at Surat. Time has obliterated the evidence of the exact whereabouts of the grave, but the memory of the strange creature's irruption into the India of the Great Moguls with its whimsical features must always have a fascination for all who take pleasure in noting the lights and shades of human character. ”

“ Slowly, almost imperceptibly, the mysterious ship came on until she was near enough for those on board the Tiger to see that her deck was crowded with men. A boat, heavily armed, was put off from the Tiger and after a parley the Englishmen were admitted on board the stranger. She proved to be a Japanese vessel. Her crew, at all events, were of that nation—squat-figured determined-looking fellows, with the impassive calm of their race reflected in their features. ”

“ Their wan faces glowed with a new hope as they dragged their emaciated frames to the outside of the fort to see their comrades from home marching up from the boats in all the panoply of military state. If it had been a division which had arrived instead of a weak company a greater stir could not have been created.
Charnock, witnessing the scene like the rest with a feeling of intense gratification, was seized with a happy thought. Why should this enthusiasm be allowed to evaporate? Why not repeat the landing for the edification of the enemy, as well as for their own satisfaction? ”

“ There must have been amongst them many islanders from without, men who had known and fought with Courthope and with whose pity mingled a fierce feeling of anger and bitter disappointment at the era of hopeless subjection which the approaching execution seemed so inexorably to usher in.
Meanwhile, in the great hall of the castle all the prisoners were assembled for the grim pageantry which was to precede the final awful rites. At the door of the chamber were " the quit and pardoned," to whom with streaming eyes and broken voices the prisoners tendered their last farewells. ”

“ But if the Dutch attitude was a natural one still more so was that of the English when they resolutely declined to accept the theory of exclusive rights which their trade rivals sought to establish. They took the line that the seas were open to all, that free trade was an inalienable right of every nation, and that if the Hollanders had done the principal part in breaking the Portuguese monopoly, they would never have achieved the amount of success they did if the way had not been prepared for them by England's defeat of the Great Armada in 1588. ”

“ For a time there was merely vague discontent, but gradually there came into existence a movement which gave vent to the popular feeling in a prolonged orgy of riot and outrage which was destined, before its end, to bring the Chinese dynasty to the verge of ruin, and to involve China itself in incalculable damage. A factor which lent strength to the movement—if it was not in intimate relation with it, was a coup d'état which in 1898 led to the relegation of the young Emperor Kwangsu to retirement, and the placing of supreme power once more in the hands of his aunt, the Dowager Empress. ”

“ He told Carpentier to "maintain carefully the sovereignty and highest jurisdiction" of the Dutch in the Eastern seas "without sharing or suffering the English or any other to encroach thereupon." "Trust them not any more than open enemies," he wrote, "and give no way to the shortening of the sovereignty and common good, nor of the respect, reputation and countenance of the same, not weighing too scrupulously what may fall out," The Dutch policy, in fine, must be what it always had been, to exclude its rivals absolutely from any real participation in the trade of the Eastern islands. ”

“ Those were times in which men of European race rose to great positions at the Oriental courts. All over Asia the subtle influence of the West was carrying with it a force which was more and more revealing itself in the capricious tastes of the despotic rulers who held sway in those regions. To every stranger from Europe there was a chance of distinction. To vary a familiar simile the traveller carried in his knapsack a minister's wand of office.
Hawkins was perfectly aware of this, and from the first obviously endeavoured to turn his position of envoy to the fullest account. ”

“ On the Dutch side a council of war was held to decide a future course of action. The outlook for them was gloomy. Ammunition on all the ships was running short, there were many casualties, and several of the vessels were so damaged as to be scarcely seaworthy. To renew the fight in such circumstances would be perilous in the extreme: yet surrender was not to be thought of. "It was a puzzling dilemma," as the official Dutch record says, and the members of the council came to the conclusion that it would be better to sleep over it. ”

“ Men in whose veins the most aristocratic blood of Portugal ran gave to the local society a distinction uncommon in an Eastern settlement. On all hands were evidences of refinement and luxury, and of the splendours of a powerful seat of government. Even to-day, when Goa is little more than a heap of mouldering ruins, it is possible to realize in the survivals of the past something of the dignified life which was once lived in this the earliest scene of European colonization in India. ”