History of Aurangzib, Based on Original Sources v5.c83.s4.11

v5.c83.s4.11

The English interpretation of Aurangzib's *farman* of 1680 was equally wrong. Payment of duty on the goods landed at Surat could, by no exercise of ingenuity, exempt from duty a different cargo that had come from Home or China not through Surat but directly to Bengal, and which, therefore, could not have paid any duty at Surat. The English traders in Bengal had no reason to claim exemption from a law of the land, which merchants of all other nations had to obey. If at a later date (in Ibrahim Khan's viceroyalty, 1691) Aurangzib's representative in Bengal was content to accept a fixed annual payment of Rs. 3,000 from the English, instead of 2½ p. c. on the actual value of their imports, it was the result of a definite contract to that effect authorised by the Emperor.