'shall have reduced me to make choice of a single companionthey spare no caresses that they may tear from my heart the religion of Jesus Christ. In a word the Gospel is too pure and my manners too corrupt.”

Some four or five years before the death of Akbar, Queen Elizabeth granted a charter with certain privileges to a small company of London merchants, just at the time that the Dutch East India Company was instituted, whose first attempt to trade on the Malabar Coast, was nearly coincident with the first arrivals of the London Company's ships at Surat. From this time may be dated the commencement of the decline of the Portuguese power in the East-where they had been dominant upwards of a century. The Portuguese in fact were the first European nation that took an extensive grasp of Indian territory and commerce; for they had settlements at Point de Galle, Colombo, Ormus, Bassein, Salsette, Goa, Mangalore, Calicut, and various other towns and districts along the Coasts. Other European adventurers also were known to the native courts even at a remoter period, where they were distinguished by the generic name of Franguis or Franks, and gorah logue or white people; though their particular national differences, and boundaries were not clearly understood. To trace the progress of these adventurers from time to time, and to illustrate the collisions of their several governments, and the effects these had upon their own motives and movements, would demand more space than can be spared within the ordinary limits of an article. The leading object of the Portuguese policy was to prevent other European adventurers from squatting down upon any part of India, which they considered as their own peculiar manor; and to obstruct the transit of Indian produce to Europe, by the Gulf of Arabia and Persia, and to monopolize the whole of the trade, by directing it from these ancient channels, into their own circuitous navigation. We find that they were so powerful, when other nations were unrepresented in the Indian seas, that in 1537 Mahommed Lodi sent to Goa to intreat their aid in his contest for sovereignty. From the time of Elizabeth, the mystery that hung like a heavy cloud over the East, began by little, and little, somewhat to clear up; and the navigation of Asia to become yearly better known. The time had come when the Portuguese must knuckle down. The Dutch became their rivals and finally their subverters. By their expulsion of the Portuguese from Ceylon, the Dutch got the Cinnamon trade into their own hands, which in addition to the spice trade of the Moluccas, caused the English to entertain heart burning jealousy of their good fortune.

Angry collisions of rival interests, continually occurred-and altogether it was an age, fruitful in transactions of questionable morality, remorseless violence, and subtle treachery. It being less our desire to enter into the fluctuations of commercial rivalry, than to take a glance at the social conditions, and circumstances, of succeeding phases of Indian policy, especially as regards Europeans-we may take three sojourners in the East as representatives of their different eras, and whose remarks, casual or direct, may be considered as reflecting a general light upon matters of conventional and moral interest. We allude to Sir Thomas Roe, Bernier, and Captain Hamilton. Their era was one, fraught with various risks and hardships, which can scarcely ever beset the European adventurer now a days. The Company's servants at Surat, suffered continually from the rapacity and misrepresentations of the native governor and his creatures. It was no uncommon thing for the packages of the Company to be taken by force, and their contents seized at a nominal price. This sort of ruffian freedom of the strong hand, was for many years a perplexing obstacle to the Company's commercial progress. Their trade at this early date was a series of mere peddling. They were feeling their way, holding gim-crack toys in one hand, to propitiate great men, or great men's little great men; while with the other, they were proffering goods for sale, in order to pay the expence of the said gim cracks. The inconveniences of travelling, for an European, in those times, must have been very great indeed. Occasionally Sir Thomas Roe (Ambassador from King James I to Jehangire) had difficulty in procuring even the necessaries of life, especially good water. It were well, if in our day we reflected a little more on these things, and compared the stern hardships of the past, with the present security, and competence, if not luxury; then should we hear less of these unbecoming complaints which military, or quasi military correspondents, obtrude at times on the public eye and ear. Poor Bernier dwells very little upon his own personal sufferings, though they were very great, but rather with unaffected sympathy on those of his illustrious companions-for he was one of the followers of Prince Dara in his flight, after the ruinous issue of his struggle for empire, with the able, wily, and determined Arungzebe. The unhappy princess, his wife, had to crouch under a miserably small tent or pal, close to Bernier as the ropes of it were tied to the wheel of his chariot'-the said chariot being a wretched bullock hackery. Even in our own day, it is not every one who would venture through the Sirgújah and Sumbhulpore jungles, in search of diamonds;

like Tavernier. Bread was to be got but seldom, and meat scarcely at all. It sometimes was dangerous to shoot a bird. A'surprised fowl' or stale fish, were now and then luxuries. But a king, or a great man might occasionally send the European adventurer a wild hog, or quarter of a deer, and for these he was expected to be exceedingly grateful, and either to make or to write fine speeches, and to give something in return, if he could manage it; the rule with Moguls being pretty much the same as that with all present-hunters-" the smallest donation thankfully accepted." But Europeans had to keep at an awful distance in general, since even ambassadors might not be permitted to be seen upon the steps of the throne. Sir Thomas Roe was expected to Koutou before the Prince Kurrim (Shah Jehan) but with an anticipatory Lord Amherst repugnance to that sort of thing, the ambassador begged to be excused. If the Prince could have peeped into the next century or so, how astonished he would have been at the ascendancy of thosehat men'-whom he was always inclined to give the cold shoulder to; and to allow one of whom, even though an Ambassador, to sit in his presence, would have been a matter too preposteously extravagant, to be thought of for an instant. Sorry enough were the lodgings of that ambassador on his way to Court. The chambers allotted to him by the Cutwal were "no bigger than ovens "-so that he preferred keeping in his tent, which appears to have been of that inferior and small kind called a Rowtí. He found the king at Ajmere, and as far as his reception from royalty itself went, had no reason to complain. Though Jehangire was considered as devoid of religion, he does not appear to have participated in his father's leanings towards Christianity, if we may judge from the anecdote that is told in regard to his nephew. Winking apparently at his conversion to Christianity, and aware perhaps of his natural timidity, he ordered him to lay his hand on the head of a lion. His declining to do so, seems to have been considered by the flighty monarch, as equally discreditable to himself and his religion-and he was forthwith consigned to a prison, whence in all probability he never emerged alive.

The great object of Sir Thomas Roe's embassage was, to procure a treaty of free trade through the Mogul's dominions. Several circumstances tended to keep English trade in a low state at that time; our national position was not sufficiently understood and appreciated, and the choice of investments was injudicious. One of the lords of the court complained to Sir Thomas, that the English caused too much cloth and bad swords to be brought to India. The Moslem Prophet's fol

lowers of those days, appear to have been much more sociably disposed, than their descendants, who, infected by the heterodoxy of caste, would give themselves airs at the idea of holding table fellowship with Infidels.' This reluctance to be hail fellow well met with Europeans, is generally in the inverse ratio of rank and respectability; just as the lowest Sudra often makes a greater fuss about his caste than a Pundit. A present of wine was every where, and always acceptable. The Prince (Shah Jehan to be) got as fou' as "Tam O'Shanter" or "Souter Johnny "-at Brampúr, on some wine presented by the Elchi. Even to the great King himself, the Knight's Alicant was a delightful offering, and perhaps did more towards the business in hand, than all his rhetoric. He fell to drinking it at once, like a right jovial and honest toper as he undoubtedly was; giving tastes of it to several about him." Sir Thomas, not unmindful of his affairs, advised the King that a Dutch ship lay before Surat. He made the most of the matter, or, as he says in his journal " this I improved, to fill their heads with jealousies of the designs of the Dutch, and the dangers that might arise from them." This sort of thing was the order of the day; every nation magnifying itself and vilifying its rivals, at the Mogul's and the subordinate Courts.

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It is curious enough, even at that early period, when interest in Indian topics might be supposed fresh and vivid, that Sir Thomas apprehended that his statements regarding all he saw and heard, would be disregarded at home, though he felt that" the history of India, for variety of matter in the time of Akbar, and the latter troubles, were well worth writing "but because they came from such remote parts, he forbears recording them, "as many will despise them." This unfortunately is rather a predominant feeling still, and no doubt, much valuable information has in consequence been lost to the world. Remote by position, remote from ignorance of her value and revenues, and remote from torpor to sympathy beyond the pale of its immediate home interests, as respects England, India always has been and to a considerable extent still is. But to return to our ambassador; at that magnificent court, where splendour of appearance was almost every thing, the plain Englishman with his comparatively beggarly ways and means, must have been exposed to sundry slights and mortifications from the arrogant Omrahs and their swaggering moustache twisting retainers; who, judging from appearances alone, must have despised the poor Elchi, and the court he represented. The fitting out of the functionary who was represent Majesty, rather savoured too much, of the parsimony

of cannie King Jamie, the Company having to pay the piper, and not being able to afford much in the way of expensive pomp and show. The consequence was, that the Ambassador felt ashamed and even "disgraced" at the figure he of necessity cut, and the mean appearance he made in the presence of so gorgeous a court. Five years' allowance, he declares, would not have provided him with even an indifferent suit of tents in any way answerable to one of theirs. Indeed if he had the wish to entertain after their fashion, he had no approach to the wherewithal. He possessed not the means of giving even a good nautch. All he could do, was to ask one or two occasionally to share his own dinner (which we suspect was not very recherché) and his, by no means cool Alicant. The Prince always seemed inclined to treat him (as he did all Europeans) rather cavalierly, in marked contrast to the good nature and affability of the King. When however, his highness presented him with a garment the worse for the wear (for he had worn it himself) the Ambassador did not seem so sensible of the great honor, as the courtiers might have desired; since they assured him that the Prince's having worn it, greatly enhanced the compliment. The fact is he had been treated with intentional discourtesy. After dancing attendance for hours, and finding himself neglected, he indignantly retired, but was called back "to receive a great present"-namely, the aforesaid cast-off garment. One would not have looked for so much meanness in the founder of the Taj Mahal of Agra, but alternations of meanness and grandeur are characteristic of the Asiatic. Sir Thomas gives us a not very flattering glimpse of the English in India, in his time, in allusion to "the drunkenness" of those of Surat. When will this vice cease to be a stain upon the national character? A great and blessed reform has taken place, in that respect, in the middle classes of Society every where, but when will addiction to intoxicating stimuli cease to be the failing of the sailor and the soldier? But it is not to the intemperance of the English in the use of liquors alone that he alludes, but to, "other exorbitances proceeding from it, which were so great in that place, that it is rather wonderful they were suffered to live." Alas! it is to be feared that much revolting detail lay involved in that hint, and that the English in other parts of India, were not a whit behind their countrymen at Surat, in moral turpitude.

The Ambassador felt justly indignant at learning that his packages had been detained, if not opened by the Prince, who disingenuously represented them to the King as mere goods.