The Cambridge History of India, Vol. IV: The Mughul Period v4.c20.87

v4.c20.87

Such was the war in the eastern side of India. On the western coast the rupture began in 1687. Sir Josia Child, the masterful chairman of the East India Company in London, decided on a policy of firmness and independence in respect of the Mughul empire. He ordered the English factory to be withdrawn from Surat, which “was really a fool's paradise", the Company's trade and officers to be concentrated at Bombay beyond the reach of the Mughul, and Indian shipping at sea to be seized in retaliation for the injury done to English trade in the Mughul dominions. But Sir John Child, the chief director¹ of all the Company's factories in India, was weak and incompetent. When he himself left Surat on 5 May, 1687, the Mughul governor immediately put a guard round the factory there, detaining the factors left behind.