The Embassy of Sir Thomas Roe to the Court of the Great Mogul 1.9
The Embassy of Sir Thomas Roe (Foster) 1.9
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1.9.1
The question naturally arises : What had Roe achieved ? How far had he accomplished the task which he had been sent out to perform ? Most writers have been content to answer vaguely that he obtained valuable concessions, without specifying either their nature or their extent. Bruce, however, the Company's historiographer, goes a step further. He gives a summary of the "articles" printed on p. 152, and says that soon after the ambassador's arrival he procured the signatures of Jahángír and Khurram to this "phirmaund or treaty between the Mogul and the English nation;" all further troubles Bruce puts down to the contumacy of the Governor of Surat, who (he says) refused to carry out the agreement entered into by his sovereign (Annals of the East India Company, vol. i, pp. 176, 185, 203). How far this is from the truth the foregoing summary will show. Roe's proposed treaty had, in fact, been rejected with scorn, and he had been obliged to content himself with farmáns ; although, soon after his arrival, he had contemptuously said that "ordinary firmanes are not woorth a halfe penny" He himself was studiously moderate in his statements as to his success, and chose rather to put in the forefront of his achievements the successful initiation of trade in the Red Sea. Yet, after all, he had effected a great deal ; and where he had failed the failure was due to causes which were quite beyond his control.
1.9.2
At his arrival he had found the English in a precarious position : threatened by the Portuguese, plundered by the native officials, and in imminent danger of expulsion owing to the ill-will of Prince Khurram. Local feeling, which had been for a time in their favour, was now against them, for their active competition injured the trade of the native merchants, while the unruliness of the sailors of the fleets, together with the troubles caused by the hostilities between the Portuguese and the English, estranged the great body of the inhabitants. The coming of the ambassador stemmed the tide of reaction ; it shifted the principal area of contention to the Court, where local feelings had little influence, and where, if " the King and Prince and great men .... are pleased, the Crie of a Million of subiects would not bee heard " (p. 480) ; the provincial authorities were restrained from acts of oppression by fear of representations at headquarters ; and thus time was given for the English to root themselves firmly in the country and to accustom the natives to their presence. By the time Roe left India, this had been accomplished ; all danger from the Portuguese appeared to have passed away ; concessions had been obtained, which " he thought as much in generall as he could expect or desire" (p. 524) ; and a good understanding had been established with the Court.
1.9.3
All this was largely due to Roe's energy and skill, and to the favourable impression he had made upon the Mogul and his son. It was indeed a fortunate circumstance for the future of English influence in India, that while the Portuguese interests were in the charge merely of an ecclesiastic, amiable and clever though he was, England had for her representative one who was not only an able diplomatist, suave and ready, but also a man of resolute character, prepared indeed to yield in small matters, but firm as steel and utterly regardless of consequences where the honour of his king and nation was concerned. Jahángír and Sháh Jahán, with all their faults, could and did appreciate such qualities, and English prestige, already growing by the victories obtained over the Portuguese, was raised to a high pitch by Roe's gallant bearing and indomitable will. "There can be," wrote Terry, " no dealing with this King upon very sure terms, who will say and unsay, promise and deny. Yet we Englishmen did not at all suffer by that inconstancy of his, but there found a free trade, a peaceable residence, and a very good esteem with that King and people ;
1.9.4
and much the better (as I conceive) by reason of the prudence of my Lord Ambassador, who was there (in some sense) like Joseph in the Court of Pharoah, for whose sake all his nation there seemed to fare the better." Roe was, in fact, the first of the long line of remarkable Englishmen who by their ability, their force of character, their unselfish adherence to lofty aims, have built up the British dominion in India ; and looking down the ranks of his successors, it is not too much to say that few have equalled, none has surpassed him. The value to the historical student of Roe's observations has been generally recognised. Nowhere else is to be found so full and so trustworthy an account of the events of the time at the Mogul Court : the desultory war in the Deccan : the impending troubles in regard to the succession : the waning of the hopes cherished by the partisans of Khusrú and Parwíz, and the rise to all but supreme power of Khurram, strengthened at first by the steady support of Núr Mahál and her family.
1.9.5
Of all the principal personages concerned (except, of course, the Queen, whom Roe never saw) we have vivid portraits : of the weak but amiable Jahángír : of his unfortunate eldest son, whose long captivity and reported excellencies excited great pity in the breast of the ambassador : of the drunken and worthless Parwíz : of Asaf Khán, avaricious, crafty, and unscrupulous : and finally of Khurram (Sháh Jahán), the coming emperor, who, cold and haughty, moves through Roe's pages with a magnificence that suits well the future master-builder of Agra and Delhi. With welcome minuteness, Roe portrays Jahángír's mode of living, both at Ajmere, where the functions of government were discharged with the same state as at Agra, and on the march, when all unnecessary parade was abandoned and sport was the order of the day. The splendours of the birthday reception, the vast yet orderly army that followed the emperor, the wealth of the royal treasury, astonished Roe. But he was too shrewd to allow this pomp and glitter to blind him to the real state of the country, and he brings out clearly in his Journal and letters the darker shades of the picture — the poverty and misery of the peasant, the general unrest and insecurity, the corruption and inefficiency of the local governors, and the looseness of the imperial control. He saw clearly, too, the forces which were making for disintegration; and though "the tyme when all in these kingdomes wilbe in combustion" (pp.
1.9.6
283, 295) was not so near as he imagined, yet it was only postponed by the force of character of Sháh Jahán and his still more capable son. All these things are noted by one whose position gave him exceptional advantages for exercising his powers of observation, and the result is a picture of "Mogolls India" of supreme interest and importance. There are many other attractive topics in Roe's Journal and letters, but over most of them we must not linger. Two, however, bulk so largely in his pages, and are in themselves so important, that it is impossible to pass them by. These are the attempts made, largely under Roe's direction, to open up commerce, first in the dominions of the Sháh of Persia, and secondly at the Turkish ports in the Red Sea. Sháh Abbás of Persia, at the instigation probably of the famous adventurers, Thomas and Robert Sherley, had long been desirous of opening up communication with one or other of the Christian powers, partly in the hope of obtaining assistance in his perennial war against the Turks, but principally with the idea of finding purchasers for the silk of his country, the export of which (a royal monopoly) he was desirous of diverting from its usual channel through the dominions of his enemy. With this end in view, he had, in 1608, despatched Sir Robert Sherley to Europe as his ambassador.
1.9.7
Travelling through Russia, Germany, and Italy, Sherley reached Madrid, where he did his best to induce Philip III (who, it will be remembered, was King of Portugal as well as of Spain) to enter into an arrangement by which the silk trade would be diverted to Ormus or some neighbouring port on the Persian Gulf His proposals, however, were coldly received ; and in disgust he crossed to England, and in October, 1611, presented himself to King James at Hampton Court. Here also nothing came of his negotiations. The East India merchants were not to be persuaded: "the way is long and dangerous," they said: "the trade uncertain and must quite cut off our traffic with the Turk ;" and insinuations were not wanting that Sherley had no valid commission to pledge his master to so far-reaching a scheme. At the bidding of King James a ship was prepared to carry back the ambassador, which landed him, in September, 1613, at Láríbandar ; and thence he proceeded overland to Persia by way of Ajmere, where he paid a visit to Jahángír. Roe, it may be noted, had been present at the conferences which had been held in London upon Sherley's proposals ; had heard both his arguments and the merchants' objections ; and had formed his own opinion as to Sherley's character and the feasibility of his plans.