The Military System of the Marathas, with a Brief Account of Their Maritime Activities c17.9

c17.9

When other European nations came to India by the maritime route, the Portuguese attempted to shut them out of the Indian trade by exercising the sovereignty of the sea, which they claimed and which their Indian neighbours had to respect. In 1608 the ships of William Hawkins with their crew and cargo were seized and taken away by the Portuguese Captain Mor, and when Hawkins expostulated with a Portuguese officer, he was quietly told that ‘these seas belonged unto the King of Portugal, and none ought to come here without his license’. The angry captain swore, fulminated and challenged his adversary, but to no effect.³ Three years later, Sir Henry Middleton met with similar opposition from a Portuguese admiral. He writes: ‘The nine and twentieth, there came a small Portugall frigat from the Admirall of the Armada (as they terme them) wherein was one Portugall and his boy who brought me answer of my letter sent the day before from the Capitaine Major, wherein hee used some complements certifying me that he was glad to heare I belonged to a King a friend, and that he and his would be readie to doe mee service in anything he might, provided I brought a letter or order from the King of Spaine or the Vice-Roy, for my trading in these parts, which if I could shew him, he would willingly obey; if otherwise, he must guard the port he had in charge, where the King his Master had his factorie’.⁴