Shivaji and His Times c8.s7.8

c8.s7.8

The shame of this cowardice in high and low alike was deepened by the contrast afforded by the manly spirit of a handful of foreigners. The English and Dutch merchants resolved to defend their own factories at all costs, though these were open houses, not built to stand an attack. They might have sought safety by escaping to their ships at Swally on the coast, 10 miles west of Surat; but "it was thought more like Englishmen to make ourselves ready to defend our lives and goods to the uttermost than by a flight to leave money, goods, house to merciless people.”