History of Aurangzib, Based on Original Sources v5.c83.s7: § 13. English traders at Surat ill-treated by Mughal officials.
History of Aurangzib, Based on Original Sources v5.c83.s7
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§ 13. English traders at Surat ill-treated by Mughal officials.
v5.c83.s7.1
As in Bengal, so also on Western Coast of India, the English traders suffered from the vexatious and illegal interference and greed of the local officers of the Mughal Government, which the Emperor could not check. In addition, they were threatened with a new tax in violation of the privileges enjoyed by them in the past. Thus, on 20th April 1680 the Surat factors write, ``Not only we but the Dutch and French are grown so inconsiderable with these Moors that they fear not to push what they please upon us ; for having demanded of us to pay the poll [i.e., the *jaziya*] as other inhabitants in the country, and we refusing, the king has some few days since sent down a positive order for all the natives to pay 3½ per cent custom as formerly, which will cost the Company little less than Rs. 20,000 yearly.'' [Orme MSS. 116, Bombay letters received.]
v5.c83.s7.2
The friction continued ; the local agents of the E. I. Co. were powerless to find a remedy. The island of Bombay had not yet become so well-developed and self-supporting as to enable the English to conduct their Indian trade from this centre and to close the factory at Surat which was constantly subject to Mughal oppression.
v5.c83.s7.3
But Sir Josiah Child, the Chairman of the Company in London, was a man of fiery disposition and exceptional force of character. He decided on a policy of firmness, independence, and if necessary of reprisal, against the Mughal empire. Such a policy required three things, namely (a) the withdrawal of the English factory from Surat, which was really a "fool's paradise," (b) concentrating the Company's trade and officers in Bombay as "the Key of India," in order to be free from the intolerable restraints and indignities to which the Company's servants were subjected at Surat, and (c) seizing the Indian shipping at sea in retaliation for the oppression done to English trade in the Mughal dominions.
v5.c83.s7.4
In fact, the Home authorities of the Company decided on war and issued orders to their agents in India to carry out such a strong policy. Its unsuitability was pointed out by the Madras and Bombay officials, but the London Chairman was immovable. The war he desired was sure to end in failure in consequence of the weakness and incompetence of Sir John Child, the "General and Director in Chief" of all the Company's factories in India.
v5.c83.s7.5
We have already seen the results of this policy of aggression in Bengal and Telingana from October 1686 to November 1689. On the West Coast, Sir John Child, in obedience to orders from Home, left Surat for Bombay on 25th April 1687, in order to be beyond the reach of the Mughals. The imperial governor of Surat disliked this retreat of the English to an independent position, as he thus lost the power of intimidating and fleecing the Company. Child's departure was justly taken to be a preparation for war, and the governor put troops round the English factory, with the effect that Benjamin Harris, the chief of the Surat Council, and Samuel Annesley, his second in office, could not go outside. This greatly hampered the Company's business.
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§ 14. Sir John Child makes war, but submits, 1688-1689.
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The Mughal Government's relations with the English continued in an unsettled and undefined state for more than a year afterwards. At last, on 9th October 1688, Sir John Child appeared with a fleet before Swally and sent to the governor of Surat a list of the grievances of the English, demanding compensation for past injuries and a new charter confirming and extending their privileges. The governor gained time by drawing the negotiations out, which could be authoritatively concluded by the Emperor only. But on 26th December, his preparations being complete, he threw off the mask and began open hostility by suddenly imprisoning the English factors and their Indian brokers, placing a guard over the English factory, and sending a force to Swally to seize Child. The latter escaped, and retaliated by blockading the mouth of the river below Surat and then sailing down the coast and capturing all sorts of Indian shipping indiscriminately. His prizes included 40 large ships, 4 smaller ones, and 36 ghurabs and gallivats, mostly laden with grain oil and other country produce. [Arnold Wright's *Annesley of Surat*, 92-98, 125-127, superseding Bruce's *Annals*, iii.]
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The Mughal Government's reply was to put the captive Englishmen at Surat in irons, in which deplorable condition they remained for 16 months (Dec. 1688—April 1690.)* At the same time, the Siddi of Janjira, as Mughal admiral, delivered an attack on Bombay (May 1689) and landed on the island, occupying its outlying parts. Child's supine administration and neglect of defensive preparations, as well as his incapable leadership and personal timidity, led to the English garrison being driven within Bombay fort and besieged there by a daily increasing mob of Muslims. They offered a stout defence and performed prodigies of valour, but suffered terrible losses from disease and desertion, without any chance of filling up the gaps in their ranks.
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Governor Child, therefore, made an abject appeal for pardon, sending a mission to Aurangzib under G. Weldon and Abraham Navarro (10th Dec. 1689.) At this time the credit of the English nation in India had been shaken by exaggerated Dutch reports of the flight of James II, the landing of William of Orange, and his assumption of the crown of England.
v5.c83.s7.10
∗ "They were at times made to gratify the mob by parading the streets with chains suspended from their necks." When Sir John Child made his submission in April 1690, they were released from the jail, but closely confined to their factory until 17th Oct. 1691. [Anderson, 243.]
v5.c83.s7.11
The Mughal Court was favourably inclined towards peace. "Neither the leading Court officials, nor the Surat [Indian] merchants, wanted to see the English ruined." In Bengal, too, the new governor, Ibrahim Khan, was eager for the return of the English traders. So, the Emperor granted his pardon to them, by an order dated 25th December 1689. The *farman* was received at Surat with due ceremony on 4th April 1690, the factors having been released by the governor a day earlier. The English were restored to their old position in the Indian trade on condition of paying a fine of one-and-a half lakhs of Rupees, and restoring the goods taken from Indian ships. [Wright, 130-143.]
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The position of the English, however, continued to be very bad during 1691, 1692, and 1693, on account of dull trade, the lack of capital, the intrusion of interlopers of their own race, and civil discord in the Bombay Council. Early in 1694 Sir John Gayer arrived as governor of Bombay and chief agent in Western India, and in the May of the same year Annesley succeeded as chief of the Surat factory, on President Harris turning mad. [*Ibid*, 153.]
v5.c83.s7.13
And then the situation was entirely changed by the appearance of a new element. The English interests in the Mughal empire were dominated for the next six years by the acts of European pirates in Asiatic waters. †