Mr Canning Had Been Made Prisoner
By The Portuguese, But The Viceroy Ordered Him To Be Set Ashore At
Surat, Saying, "Let Him Go And Help His Countrymen To Fight, For We
Shall Take Their Ships And All Of Them Together." He Was Accordingly
Liberated, And Came To Us At Swally.
The purser had likewise been nearly
taken; but he escaped and got on board.
The 3d October, Seikh Shuffe,
governor of Amadavar, [Ahmedabad], the chief city of Guzerat, came to
Surat and thence to Swally, where he entered into articles of agreement
for trade and friendship.
The 29th of October, four Portuguese galleons and a whole fleet of
frigates, or armed grabs, hove in sight. Our general went immediately to
meet them in the Dragon, and fired not one shot till he came between
their admiral and vice-admiral, when he gave each of them a broadside
and a volley of small arms, which made them come no nearer for that day.
The other two galleons were not as yet come up, and our consort the
Hosiander could not get clear of her anchors, so that she did not fire a
shot that day. In the evening both sides came to anchor in the sight of
each other. Next morning the fight was renewed, and this day the
Hosiander bravely redeemed her yesterday's inactivity. The Dragon drove
three of them aground, and the Hosiander so danced the hay about them,
that they durst never show a man above hatches. They got afloat in the
afternoon with the tide of flood, and renewed the fight till evening,
and then anchored till next day. Next day, as the Dragon drew much
water, and the bay was shallow, we removed to the other side of the bay
at Mendafrobay, [Jaffrabat], where Sardar Khan, a great nobleman of
the Moguls, was then besieging a castle of the Rajaputs, who, before
the Mogul conquest, were the nobles of that country, and were now
subsisting by robbery. He presented our general with a horse and
furniture, which he afterwards gave to the governor of Gogo, a poor town
to the west of Surat.
After ten days stay, the Portuguese having refreshed, came hither to
attack us. Sardar Khan advised our general to flee; but in four hours we
drove them out of sight, in presence of thousands of the country people.
After the razing of this castle, Sardar Khan reported this gallant
action to the Great Mogul, who much admired it, as he thought none were
like the Portuguese at sea. We returned to Swally on the 27th December,
having only lost three men in action, and one had his arm shot off:
while the Portuguese acknowledged to have lost 160, though report said
their loss exceeded 300 men.
The 13th January, 1613, I was appointed factor for the worshipful
company, and bound under a penalty of four hundred pounds. Our ships
departed on the 18th, the galleons not offering to disturb them: and at
this time Anthony Starkey was ordered for England.
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