Arnold Wright

“ Oxenden's skilful hand is to be discovered in all the devious negotiations which led up to this consummation of the long cherished hope of founding a settlement on the Western Coast of India. At Surat in the years which succeeded his arrival he had completely restored the tarnished English prestige by a bold and judicious policy. Fortune put in his way a happy opportunity of bringing the English once more into favour at the Mogul Court. ”

“ A position of extraordinary difficulty had been created which only a man of sound judgment, wide experience, and abounding courage could cope with successfully. Apart from the weakness incidental to a decayed factory and a lowered prestige at Surat, the new President had to meet a formidable hostile combination which had been brought about by the cession of Bombay. The Dutch bitterly opposed the measure on the general principle that England must not be allowed to secure a permanent lodgment in the East. ”

“ You have lost a servant, we a companion, by his life; but against this he can write 'Death to me is gain.'"
Bombay in its earliest years was happy in the possession of a governor who carried forward the public-spirited traditions of Oxenden and laid broad and deep the foundations of the city. Gerald Aungier, by name, he was a serious minded and practical patriot who brought to his charge those sound personal qualities which never fail to secure the confidence and even regard of Oriental people amongst whom they are practised. ”

“ At this period where is now a proud city—"the gate of India"—was merely a squalid Portuguese settlement, with a population of 10,000, mostly poor Mohammedans and low-caste Indians, who obtained a precarious living by fishing and rice cultivation. ”

“ The close proximity of the place to Goa probably accounts for the comparative insignificance of the Portuguese town. Nevertheless, it is remarkable that with their keen instinct for a good strategic position on a sea-board the Portuguese should have allowed the superb harbour of Bombay to drop into a quite inferior place in their chain of settlements in the East. ”

“ Incidents of this character were common in the long-sustained fight between the Dutch and the Portuguese. They grew out of the cruelties practised in the name of religion by the Inquisition at Goa upon the unfortunate Dutch and English captives who fell into the hands of the Goa government. Amongst the Dutch records is preserved a veritable human document in the shape of a diary of a Dutchman, one John van der Berg, who was imprisoned at Goa for four years, ending with April, 1624, two years before the occurrence related in the Bombay church. ”

“ In the early part of 1628 we find Captain John Hall writing from "aboard the Mary at Swally" to his employers in England to say that he had sounded "the Bay of Bumbaye." "In my opinion," he wrote, "it is a wonderful fit place for our shipping to harbour in, and may be made so strong that all the Portugals in India (we) being once situated (there) are not able to do us wrong." ”

“ As an idle speculation we may wonder what the excellent Gerald Aungier would think if he were permitted to revisit the earth and see what kind of city has developed out of the modest town of 50,000 inhabitants of which he was so justly proud. ”

“ It would also probably have turned the scale so markedly in favour of Dutch supremacy that the English could never have secured a substantial foothold in India. But Providence ordained matters otherwise, and so this little handful of men, lodged in the ruins of the old Portuguese town at Bombay, became a nucleus around which gathered in due course a flourishing settlement, the progenitor of mighty interests on the adjacent continent of India. ”

“ But it was speedily made apparent that the island was not to be given over with the readiness which the English had ventured to anticipate on the strength of the specific grant which had been made under the Royal marriage settlement. When James Ley, the Earl of Marlborough, who was entrusted with the King's Commission to take over the assigned territory, presented himself at Goa about the middle of 1662, he found the Portuguese Viceroy altogether disinclined to surrender the island. ”

“ Prior to the visit of the fleet, to which we are about to refer, the Directors, writing out from home, had urged upon their representatives at Surat the advisability of establishing a fortified settlement on the island of Bombay or some other suitable spot in its vicinity. Mr. William Foster, in his introduction to one of the volumes of his transcripts of the Indian Records, suggests that the Court were prompted to make this proposal by Jeronimo de Pavia, a converted Portuguese Jesuit, who was taken to England in one of the Company's ships in 1625. ”

“ The Portuguese power, though sorely crippled, was yet capable of inflicting nasty wounds. From Goa might sally forth galleons which would take at a serious disadvantage ships of either English or Dutch origin sailing up or down the coast. ”

“ After this each fought the Portuguese in its own way. The Dutch sent an annual fleet to blockade Goa; the English offered a sturdy resistance at Surat. In the latter case, the operations were facilitated by the grant of a firman by the Emperor, authorizing the English to wage war on the Portuguese in Mogul territory if necessary. Acting on this permit, a body of men from the English ships was landed on the shore near Swally and made a successful attack on a Portuguese force encountered in the vicinity. ”