The Embassy of Sir Thomas Roe to the Court of the Great Mogul 19.4.3

19.4.3

I answered that for their trade they Could bring nothing but Easterne Comodityes, from China or the Islands, for that their owne land yeilded nothing fitt for these parts, but that they liued upon transport of forraigne goodes, and seeking new trades, gayning by all Nations that needed others and had not vse of shipping : but that they most affected a footing in these stated that the ship was the Nassau, which left Bantam in the previous September, and, capturing on her way a Portuguese vessel laden with cinnamon, entered the Red Sea and anchored at Mocha ; after disposing of most of her lading to great profit, her commander, encouraged by some Gujaráti merchants, determined to visit Surat, after spending the monsoon at Socotra ; failing, however, to fetch that island, he was forced to proceed, in spite of the danger of approaching the Indian coast at this season. The governor, wrote Kerridge, was afraid either to entertain the Dutch or to drive them away, and so was temporising : he had refused them a house, though he offered to buy their cargo at current rates : and he was trying to frighten them away by representing their danger of shipwreck or of attack from Portuguese vessels. The English, it seems, entertained the Dutch merchants hospitably, but were evidently alarmed by the prospect of competition from this quarter ;