Remonstrantie 5: [4. DESCRIPTION OF GUJARAT TRADE.]

5

Ahmadabad is the capital of Gujarat, and receives annually from here [Agra] large quantities of goods, for example, much Patna silk, to be manufactured there into ormesines, satins, velvets, and various kinds of curious stuffs, so that there is here little trade in Chinese silk manufactures. Carpets are also woven there with an intermixture of silk and gold thread; while the imports include spikenard, tzierila, asafoetida, pipel and numerous such drugs, besides Bengal cassas [muslins], mah [malmal], and clothing for Hindu women from Bengal and the Eastern provinces, pamris from Kashmir and Lahore, and Bengal hand or white sugar. In the other direction are brought hither turbans, girdles, orhnis or women's head-coverings, worked very cleverly and ingeniously with gold thread; also velvets, satin of various kinds, striped, flowered, or plain; coconuts from Malabar; European woollen goods; lead, tin, quicksilver, vermilion; large quantities of spice, viz. cloves, nutmeg, and mace, and sandalwood. These goods are now bought from us at Surat, and forwarded in this direction, but formerly they were obtained in even greater quantities from the Portuguese in Cambay, who had a busy trade there, and who brought them to exchange for kannekens, tirkandis, and striped cloths for Mozambique and the Coasts.
The [Cambay] trade is however, nearly, or almost wholly at an end. Formerly, three caravans, or kafilas, used to come every year. (A kafila consists of a large number of fustas, which the merchants of Goa, Cochin, Bassein, Daman and all the coasts of India get ready, from the beginning of October onwards, to be escorted by the armado de remas of the Portuguese or their own kings, owing to the danger from the Malabars, who with their small boats cause great injury to the Portuguese, for they have been bitter enemies for many years past.) Now the trade is so much decayed that this year, 1626, only 40 merchants' fustas arrived, carrying goods of small value; and this is the cause of the decline of Cambay, and indeed of all Gujarat, for the Portuguese brought all their goods, both the spices and Chinese silk carried in frigates from the South, and the European merchandise distributed in all directions from the carracks at Goa, and sold them for a small profit, so that the [Cambay] merchants gained largely on their purchases, as well as on sales of cotton goods. Because of this decay, we are cursed not only by the Portuguese, but by the Hindus and Moslems, who put the whole blame on us, saying that we are the scourge of their prosperity; for, even though the Dutch and English business were worth a million rupees annually, it could not be compared to the former trade which was many times greater, not merely in India, but with Arabia and Persia also.