Siyar al-mutaʾakhkhirin 42.4.5

42.4.5

The English apprised of this artifice, concluded that an open war was better than a deceitful peace, and accordingly they attacked the French likewise; so that it is now the second or third year since they waged war with them. But, meanwhile, the inhabitants of the new land having stretched their nerves, and made mighty efforts, gave at last a total defeat to the fresh troops and Generals that had been sent against them by the King. Such an unprosperous war, which had cost already more than thirty or forty thousand men, and above twenty corores of rupees, struck the King's Ministers with fear and amazement; the more so, as over and above the war with their own kinsmen, the men of the new land, and that with the French, which now raged with fury, they had to oppose also a new enemy; and this was the Espan-yols, who are a different nation from those already mentioned, and have a King and a kingdom of their own. These Espan-yols are a very western nation, always at war with the Roman Emperors, since the latter took from them the city of Ashtanbol about five hundred years ago, in which time they have not ceased to wage war with the Rômees (Romans): this nation also got up to assist the French and Americans, and to assault the English. In short, the Hollanders likewise came to be involved in this war against the English, whose prevalent power they feared, and whose conquests in Hindostan they had beheld with the utmost jealousy.