Storia do Mogor 46.2.4

46.2.4

We learn from the Aleppo letter quoted below that Bellomont carried with him recommendatory letters from the States General of Holland to their agents at Isfahan. The Commonwealth was then at war with Holland, hostilities beginning in April, 1652, and peace being made in May, 1654 (see S. R. Gardiner's 'History of Commonwealth,' vol. ii., pp. 116, 370). I have not been able to procure any confirmation from the Dutch archives that any such letters were issued ; but, assuming the fact, they must have been anterior to the peace of May, 1654. Professor C. H. Firth has been kind enough to furnish me with a copy of a letter written from Aleppo on March 19, 1654-55 (Mercurius Politicus, No. 265, July 5 to 12, 1655, pp. 5466, 5467). Nine days before its date the East India Company's agent at Aleppo had received letters from Persia in which it was stated that 'a pretended ambassador from the late King of Scots at Cullen is come to the Persian Court with purpose to desturb the Companies affairs there, and to obtain the rights of Ormus Customs from them, having recommendatory letters (which if true were doubtless obtained in the time of the warr) from the States of Holland to the Dutch in these parts to assist him therein, unto whom he hath written to Spahan (Isfahan) from Khazbien (Qazwīn) — where the Emperor then kept his Court — to that purpose. . . .'