The Embassy of Sir Thomas Roe to the Court of the Great Mogul 58.3

58.3

At this point the passages in the Court Minutes relating to Roe's embassy come to an end. He still, however, maintained close relations with the Company. On November 19, 1619, they asked him whether he was willing to proceed to Bantam in supreme charge; Roe, however, while thanking them for the offer and professing his readiness to go "if the necessitye of their occasions did require it," desired "a breathing tyme" before going into a further exile. In December, 1619, he offered 400l. towards the proposed almshouse for persons maimed in the Company's service. On January 24, 1620, he suggested that a royal letter should be procured, acknowledging the Mogul's kind usage of the English, and thanking him for the presents he had sent; a draft which he had prepared was accordingly ordered to be engrossed for signature. The Court Minutes of 1620-21 are missing, and it is impossible, therefore, to discover whether his services were retained for that year; but apparently they were, for his allowance appears to have been continued. At the election of 1621 he was present, but was not proposed for election; and about this time, it would seem, his allowance was stopped. On August 3, 1621, he informed the Court that "some of the gennerallitie had reported grutchingly of the 1500 poundes that was giuen him att his returne, which he presumed he had deserued, if in nothing else, yet in the frugalitie of keeping their house; also there was giuen him (as he vnderstood it) 200 poundes per annum, but it seemes the Companie ment it not so." Counting on this he had invested in the current joint stock, and though he had paid in 800l., 300l. was still due, which, owing to the stoppage of his allowance, he was unable for the present to pay. He hoped, however, to be able to find the money by Christmas, and he begged them to impose no fine for the delay. This was agreed to; but a further request that the Company should purchase his share in the old joint stock was refused, as the "generality" had disapproved of some previous transactions of the same nature. Roe then asked that as, owing to "his intended imployment [as ambassador to Constantinople] and the encrease of his familie he shalbe driven also to larger lodgings, he should want three peeces of their vellvett embroydered hangings to add vnto five of the same kind which he had allready bought and three of their Persian Carpetts," they would either bestow them upon him or allow him to "take them vpp vppon Stock." The Court very willingly made him a present of the goods, "assuring him that howsoever the Companie was so vnhappy as to loose the imployment of so well a deseruing gentleman, yet their loues should follow him, and therefore desired the Continuaunce of his good affecion to the Company; which he freely promised and tooke verry thankefullie the Curtisie now donn him." Roe did not forget his promise, and both during his embassy at Constantinople and in after years, his advice and assistance were always at the service of the Company which had given him "his first public employment" by sending him to represent England at the Court of the Great Mogul.