The Embassy of Sir Thomas Roe to the Court of the Great Mogul 1.13
The Embassy of Sir Thomas Roe (Foster) 1.13
- Language
- English
1.13.1
In 1705 was published Navigantium atque Itinerantium Bibliotheca; or a Compleat Collection of Voyages and Travels, by John Harris, A.M., F.R.S. In this (vol. i, book II, ch. xxx) is given an inaccurate and much compressed paraphrase of Roe's Journal, derived from Purchas. Great liberties are taken with the text, some of it being incorporated with Peyton's journal in ch. xxviii, and other portions amalgamated with extracts from Terry and others to form ch. xxxi. In Harris's second edition (1744) the narrative is entirely suppressed, and in lieu of it a short account of its contents is given in a chapter containing a general history of the Company's trade. Meanwhile an attempt had been made to produce an entirely new edition. Having somehow procured, as already related the first volume of Roe's own MS. copy, Messrs. Awnsham and John Churchill in 1704 made the Journal a special feature of the first volume of their Collection of Voyages and Travels. Roe's work, said the Preface, had already appeared in part, but "now he comes abroad again with considerable Additions, not foisted in, but taken from his own Original Manuscript, which it is likely Purchas had not, but some imperfect Copy of it. It is true, the Additions are not great in bulk .... but they are valuable for the subject ... In fine, here is all that is valuable of Sir Thomas Roe, and nothing that may cloy the Reader." These are brave words, but the performance is far from bearing out the promise.
1.13.2
"After an attentive comparison of these two former editions," wrote a subsequent editor (Robert Kerr), "it obviously appears that the edition by Purchas, in 1625, is in general more circumstantial and more satisfactory than that of Churchill . . . notwithstanding its superior pretensions;" and this verdict is entirely borne out by an examination of the latter. It is a veritable piece of hack-work, performed in most careless fashion. The additions are chiefly the dates of Roe's arrival at or departure from various places, though a few incidents are recorded which had been passed over by Purchas. On the other hand, the omissions (of which nothing is said in the Preface) are numerous and important. The events at Surat are told in eleven short lines; Roe's reception at Court is said to have been "very favourable, but needs not particularizing;" and all details of commercial matters and of Roe's negotiations are omitted. By these means the bulk of the narrative has been reduced to less than one-half of that of Purchas's version. The spelling has been modernised, and, not content with this, the editor has taken upon himself the task of improving Roe's diction. In the earlier portion of the work scarcely a sentence escapes alteration; but later on the editor's energy flags and changes are much less numerous. Dates are frequently given incorrectly, and the editor's knowledge is displayed by changing the Mogul's "shash" (turban-cloth, p.
1.13.3
322) into "staff." Four letters of Roe's, written all before November, 1616, his geographical account of India, and a note of presents asked for by him, are also included in the volume. It is unnecessary to trouble the reader with a detailed account of subsequent versions, since they are all reproductions, more or less complete, of Purchas or Churchill. It may suffice to mention that the Journal appears in the collections of the Abbé Prévost (Histoire Générale des Voyages, Amsterdam edition, vol. xiii), Schwabe (Allgemeine Historie der Reisen, 1747 etc., vol. xi), Knox (New Collection of Voyages, 1767, vol. vi), Pinkerton (General Collection of Voyages, 1808-14, vol. viii), Kerr (General History and Collection of Voyages, 1811-24, vol. ix), and Laharpe (Abrégé de l'Histoire Générale des Voyages [Prévost's], 1816, vol. iv). Finally, in our own day, Purchas's version of the Journal appeared in serial form, under the care of the late Mr. Talboys Wheeler, in the Calcutta Englishman; and a small impression of this edition was issued in book form a few years later (1873), together with Dr. Fryer's New Account of East India, by Messrs Trübner and Co. The present edition, as already mentioned, is based upon the only portion of Roe's own copy which has survived, viz., Addl. MS. 6115, in the British Museum Collection. This has been given in full, and consequently a large proportion (about two-thirds) appears now for the first time.
1.13.4
A diligent search having failed to discover the rest of the journal in any known collection, it has been necessary, when the manuscript comes to an end, to fall back upon the mutilated version of Purchas, which carries on the narrative to January 22, 1618. For the remaining year of Roe's stay in India, we are almost entirely dependent upon his letters and such scraps of information as can be gathered from contemporary documents. In the Journal we have interspersed a number of the more important of Roe's letters, nearly all of which are now printed for the first time. It was impossible, within the space available, to include all that are extant; nor was this necessary, for many either deal with matters of detail which have now lost their interest, or else repeat what has been said elsewhere. For the same reasons it has been judged advisable to cut down most of the letters for which we have been able to find room. Each letter has, however, been carefully examined, and it is believed that nothing of real importance has been omitted. In many cases, passages for which room has not been found in the text have been utilised in the notes or in this introduction. Addl. MS. 19277—the other contemporary copy of Roe's manuscript, to which we have already alluded—has, of course, been collated (so far as it goes) with our text, and in a few cases its readings have been followed in preference to those of the principal manuscript.
1.13.5
Where, also, two or more contemporary copies of the letters exist, these have been carefully compared, and any differences of importance noted. We may hope, therefore, that we have at least been able to present a text which may be accepted as trustworthy. The notes have been mainly devoted to giving additional particulars of the persons, places, or events alluded to. For the necessary information the editor is indebted largely to manuscript sources, such as, in the India Office Records, the Surat letterbooks and the Original Correspondence Series (now in course of publication under the title of Letters received by the East India Company from their Servants in the East), the Court Minutes of the East India Company, the logs of various voyages, and many miscellaneous documents; in the British Museum, Kerridge's letters (Addl. MS. 9366), and the journal kept by Walter Peyton, master of the Expedition, in the fleet which conveyed the ambassador to India (Addl. MS. 19276), have been of special service; and the Public Record Office has yielded several papers of importance, especially in the case of the documents grouped in Appendix B. Of printed books, the one most utilised has naturally been the Voyage to East India, by Edward Terry, Roe's chaplain, already mentioned. From this everything has been extracted that bears directly upon Roe's mission, as distinguished from the general disquisitions on things Indian which form the staple of that interesting work.